


kin assigned fenton

by rayghosts



Series: Phic Phight 2020 [4]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Character Undeath, Full Ghost Danny Fenton, Gen, Mistaken Identity, Separate Danny Fenton and Danny Phantom, T for swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23680813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayghosts/pseuds/rayghosts
Summary: Phantom wakes up in a body that isn't his, surrounded by people who keep calling him Danny (whoever the heck that is).Based on DarkNymfa's Phic Phight prompt: "Fenton/Phantom AU where during the Portal accident, a ghost bonds to Danny Fenton's body, bringing him back to life but maintaining their own ghostly memories and none of Danny's. Meanwhile, Danny himself died and became a ghost, keeping his own human memories."
Series: Phic Phight 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690195
Comments: 27
Kudos: 142





	1. it's a lie, i'm not a human

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarkNymfa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkNymfa/gifts).



The first thing Phantom noticed when he woke up was that he felt heavy.

Gravity did not exist in the ghost zone. He never felt heavy unless he was being pinned by another ghost. As such, he was filled with fear, and his eys flew open.

He immediately regretted this action, because the harsh light that met his eyes made him wince and close them again. How could his eyes hurt? Ghosts shouldn't even be able to feel pain unless it was dull, but just looking at something bright made his head ache.

Now that he noticed it, he felt much more than just a headache. There was the cold floor underneath his arms, and when he tried to stir, a sharp ache flared throughout his whole body.

What, sincerely, the fuck was happening?

There was ringing in his ears, but that faded over time. When the ringing was no longer there, he was able to make out voices. They seemed to repeat the same name over and over: "Danny!"

"Who's Danny?" he managed to say. _Ancients_ , even his tongue felt heavy.

The voices suddenly fell silent. "Um," said one of them, "you are."

Phantom hesitantly opened his eyes again, slowly this time. He found two people standing over him, but something about them looked odd. Their skins weren't like any shade of blue, green, or gray he had seen on other ghosts, and they lacked any sort of glow emanating from their bodies...

Phantom's eyes widened, and he blurted out, "Humans!"

The concern on both humans' faces immediately deepened. "...Yeah?" the darker one, which wore glasses and a ridiculous red hat, said. "Should we not be?"

The paler one, which looked like a girl with black hair and even blacker eyeliner, leaned over Phantom with knitted brows. She held up a hand with four fingers raised and asked, "Danny, how many fingers am I holding up?"

Phantom wanted to scramble away from these strangers, but his body was too tired and--ugh--heavy for him to move, so he frowned at the human girl and said, "Four. But why do you keep calling me Danny?"

The two humans exchanged a glance, then the girl asked, "Do you remember anything about yourself?"

"Yeah," Phantom said, a little (okay, a lot) confused. "My name's Phantom."

Another exchanged glance, and the human boy said, "No, it's not."

Phantom eyed the two of them in turn and said, "How do you know? I've never even met you before."

The girl grabbed his shoulder, which made him wince because he was still in a lot of pain (which shouldn't be possible, but he was). She stated sternly, "Yes, you have. We're your friends--I'm Sam, he's Tucker, remember? And you're Danny."

Despite his pain, Phantom managed to push her away and sit up against the awful pull of gravity. "No, I'm not! I--" He froze, because just then a strand of black hair fell over his eye. His hair wasn't black. If that wasn't enough to confuse him, he then noticed his own hands, which in fact were not his own. He was dressed in a white jumpsuit, except it looked like it had been blown apart--tears and holes riddled it, and through these, the skin underneath was visible. Pink skin, just like the paler human's. Phantom brought the hand up to his face. Hundreds of tiny grooves were etched into it.

Again, _what the fuck?_ This was not a ghost hand. It didn't even have any claws! Realization dawned on him. He wasn't in a ghost body...he was in a _human's_.

"Uh, Danny?" the boy--Tucker--asked.

Danny. That must be the name of the human he was inside. Phantom didn't even remember overshadowing this guy, but that must be what was happening, right? He focused on leaving Danny's body so the human can talk to his friends and get them to leave him alone. Except, well, no matter how hard he tried...

"I'm stuck," he said.

"Stuck?" Sam repeated.

Phantom was _really_ filled with fear now. This-- _yuck_ \--human organ in his borrowed chest began to beat harder the more anxious he got, which wasn't helping. "I'm stuck inside this body! Why can't I leave?"

He glared at the two humans before him, who looked dumbfounded. "...Um," Tucker finally said, "are you saying...you're a ghost?"

"Yes, I'm a ghost!" Phantom snapped. Ouch, his head hurt. Phantom tried to push Danny's stupid body to its feet, which was enormously hard with this stupid gravity, but he managed to succeed. "I'm not Danny, whoever he is. I need to get out!"

"Er, Da--Phantom," Sam said. "How do we know you're really a ghost and not just, uh..."

"Off your bonkers?" Tucker completed.

Phantom raised an eyebrow. "Why? What's so hard to believe about your friend getting possessed?"

"Nothing much," Tucker answered, "except that ghosts don't exist."

Of fucking course he would say that. Why would humans ever believe in ghosts? The two species interact so rarely that Phantom himself would not have believed in humans if several ghosts didn't previously exist as them in life. Phantom opened his mouth, trying to find a valid argument, but he came up empty. Not that it mattered anyway, because the blood rushing from the chest organ was growing too heavy for his thought organ to handle, and he felt Danny's knees buckle and send him falling to the floor again while his vision filled with black.

He woke up. Again.

This time, the surface underneath him wasn't so cold. In fact, it was warm and soft. Likewise, the torn up hazmat suit he was wearing before was now replaced by soft cotton clothes.

Phantom hurriedly brought a hand to his face and was immediately disappointed. He was still in Danny's body. How? Why? Why was he stuck?

"Danny, you're awake!" a voice next to him said, making him jolt in surprise. He expected to see the same girl as before, but when he turned his head (Correction: Danny's head) to the side, he saw a different human. She had ginger hair and teal eyes.

"I'm not Danny," he told her.

The girl frowned. "Sam and Tucker told me about this. They say you think you are...a ghost?"

"I don't _think_ I'm a ghost, I _am_ a ghost," Phantom retorted.

"Really?" the girl replied skeptically. "Can you prove that?"

That should have been easy. Ghosts still kept a few of their powers even while they were possessing someone--at least, that's what he heard from the few ghosts who did interact with humans and managed to overshadow one. He focused on Danny's hand, willing it to turn invisible.

It did not turn invisible.

He frowned and tried to phase it through the soft surface he was lying on. The hand only pressed against it, but it did not phase through.

Invisibility and intangibility were a ghost's two simplest powers, so why was he unable to use them?

"You're not a ghost," the girl said when she sensed his failure. "You're Danny Fenton, a human."

"I'm pretty sure I just told you that I'm not."

The girl's gaze was intense as she continued, "You just went through a traumatizing experience. It would be normal for your brain to make up memories to..."

"Woah, woah, woah," Phantom said before she could finish. He rolled his borrowed eyes and grumbled, " _Awesome_. You're a psychologist."

"I'm your sister, Jazz," she stated simply. "And...are you saying you know what a psychologist is?"

"Of course I do! Do you think all ghosts are eighteenth century peasants or something? Psychologists can die, too, you know."

Jazz was undaunted by his comment. "As I was saying, though..."

"I'm not crazy--I mean, Danny isn't crazy," Phantom cut her off. "Like I told you, I'm a ghost."

All of a sudden, the door slammed open, causing Phantom to jump in his bed. A very large human man dressed in a vivid orange jumpsuit walked in, followed by a shorter human woman in a matching teal suit.

"He confesses! So he's guilty," the man said.

Jazz groaned. "Dad--"

"Your father is right, dear," the woman in teal said. "You said Danny might be having a psychological crisis, so we let you talk to him, but it's clear now that the ghost inside him is saying the truth."

"Yes, thank you!" Phantom said, spreading his arms out gladly. "Finally, someone who believes me!"

The woman gave him a smile. "We believe you, dear. And we'll get you out of my son."

"Really?" he asked hopefully.

"Oh, yes," she said, and then whatever happiness Phantom felt immediately plummeted as she pulled out a very large weapon and aimed it at him. "And the only way to do that is by exterminating you."

Phantom's eyes widened, and he chuckled nervously. "Um, sike?"

The gun powered up, and Phantom yelped and shut his eyes as a blast came out at him.

Silence fell over the room.

Phantom opened one eye, then the other. The weapon's nuzzle was smoking slightly, so it must have fired already, but he wasn't harmed. He scanned the room to see any sign of where the shot might have landed, and he found a scorch mark--right behind where he should have been hit.

"Huh," the large man said. "I guess Jazzy-pants was right."

Phantom snapped his attention to him. "What?"

"The weapon didn't affect you," the woman holding the gun said. "It only affects ghosts, which means you're a hundred percent human."

"Wait, hold up," Phantom said, growing a little nervous and extremely confused. "How do you even know it works against ghosts? Did you meet any?"

The woman sighed, like this was a topic she had to explain many times over. "I assure you, it works. We don't need any practical testing to know that the theory is correct."

"But it's not," he argued, then gestured down to himself. "It didn't shoot me."

"Trust me, I know what I'm talking about," the woman said. "You're human."

Phantom paled. "But..."

He felt a hand rest on his shoulder and saw Jazz looking at him pityingly. "It's okay, Danny. I know you're confused."

"I'm not Danny!" he shouted. He couldn't be. There was no way his memories could be fake. The Ghost Zone, the lairs he visited, Frostbite, Dora, Sidney, all those ghosts he befriended...he was certain those couldn't be fake. Right?

But the humans seemed sure about their conclusion. The woman put her weapon away, got close to Phantom, and actually kissed his forehead. "I'm sure youre tired, Danny. Why don't you go back to sleep?"

Phantom wanted to argue that he wasn't tired, that he was the opposite of tired, but unfortunately, she was right. After she lowered him back into the bed with an immensely strong grip, he felt his (Danny's?) eyelids grow heavy. Well, heavier than usual.

The other people in the room, Danny's family, filed out as Phantom reluctantly fell asleep.

He saw himself back in the Ghost Zone, where he should be. He was flying around lazily, doing loop de loops in the air and poking the clouds of swirling ectoplasm that littered the Zone. He was bored. The Ghost Zone was a neat place, but he felt hed done all the exploring he could, and he wished something new would happen.

Luckily or unluckily, something did. Not very far, a spark of light appeared. Phantom raised his eyebrows curiously and approached it, but it disappeared. Weird. He floated to the spot where it had been.

Big mistake. The spark reappeared, except it was less of a spark and more of an explosion this time. Electricity burst through Phantom's form and fried him from the inside out. He screamed. His surroundings melted into nothing, and at some point, he thought he heard his scream mix with someone else's. His molecules were split apart, and he felt his consciousness go somewhere else, some body that was not his own.

And then he felt heavy.

Phantom gasped and jolted awake. He blinked several times, his brain filled with confusion. He wasn't in the Ghost Zone. He was still trapped in the human realm, so what was up with that vision?

_Oh_ , he thought, remembering what Nocturne had told him about visions that humans saw in their sleep. That was a _dream_.

From what hed heard about dreams, they rarely ever made sense. This one did, though. He was certain that was a memory of what brought him here.

A lot of good remembering did him, though.

Phantom looked over the room he was in, which he didn't get a chance to do previously. It was too dark to see clearly, which was frustrating, because darkness had never impeded his vision when he was a ghost. Although, the soft light coming through the window was enough to let him make out a few things in the room, like the various models of what he recognized had been described to him as spaceships, and posters of what he heard were called stars.

There was also a mirror in the room. Phantom rose from the bed, and he noticed that the pain had blessedly subsided, although he still felt heavy. Stupid gravity. He managed to stand on his own after a few minutes of nearly falling off balance, then shuffled his way to the mirror.

_Shit_ , he thought, because even though he knew he was in someone else's body, he never had a chance to actually see it before now. The boy he was inside had black hair and blue eyes, which he remembered were the same colors as that large man in orange had. This body was smaller, though, more similar in structure to the woman. That damned black hair kept falling in front of his eyes. He looked around as young as those two humans who first greeted him, which was also around the age Phantom (as a ghost) usually appeared, although he never kept count of how many years exactly that was. Not like keeping count of years was easy inside a dimension where there was no sun.

While Phantom was busy despairing over the frail body he was trapped inside, an object in the room fell with a sudden crash. Phantom jumped a foot in the air. For Pariah's sake, why was he so jumpy in this body?

He turned around and jumped yet again as he noticed the green glow that had fallen all over the room. A few objects started floating on their own, including the bedside clock that was knocked onto the floor before.

If Phantom were a regular human, he probably would have shitted himself. But Phantom was not. Instead, his face split into a relieved smile, and he opened up his arms and exclaimed, "Thank Clockwork! A ghost! You have to help me."

The floating objects paused, as if they were put off by Phantom's weirdly positive outburst. Then they fell back to their original places, and the glow gathered into a certain spot in the room until they formed a person.

Phantom frowned and tilted his borrowed head. The ghost that appeared before him looked familiar. Just as he was wondering why, he realized: it was the same image he had just seen in the mirror, only with inverted colors, so that he had white hair instead of black, grayish-blue skin instead of pink, and ectoplasmic green eyes instead of blue.

"You're Danny," Phantom said. Then he slapped a fist on an open palm and said, "Ohhhh, so _that's_ why I couldn't return control to you! You're _dead_."

The ghost, who was indeed dead Danny Fenton, stiffened and yelled, "I'm not dead!"

"You're a ghost," Phantom said, gesturing to Danny's floating, glowing form. "I'm pretty sure that means you're dead."

Danny pursed his lips. Then he grabbed Phantom by the collar and repeated, "I'm not dead, because my living body is right here, and I would kindly like you to give it back."

Phantom chuckled and slowly raised a finger. "Um, about that..."

Danny's glare was intense. Phantom didn't think he could be a very strong ghost, considering how recent his death was, but he didn't have any powers to protect himself anymore, so he shrunk warily under his eyes.

"What about that? Give me back my body."

"Yeah, um, I'm kind of, stuck?" Phantom informed him.

"Stuck?" He shook his head rapidly and said, "Quit joking around! Let me get back in my body, or I'll get my parents to beat your ghostly ass."

Phantom paused, because he heard Danny's voice falter at the end. The hands grapping him were shaking. He realized Danny must be afraid.

"It's okay," he spoke soothingly, trying to pat his shoulder reassuringly. "You just died, I'm sure that's--"

"I'm not dead!" Danny screamed and threw him to the ground. Ow, ow ow, stupid human body that feels pain.

Phantom tried to get up and reason with him again, but then the door opened. Danny's mom was there, holding the gun from before.

Danny turned around, and he widened his eyes and smiled. "Mom--"

But the woman didn't hear him. She crossed the room in a few bounds and formed a barrier with her body between Phantom and Danny, except, well...she was protecting the wrong one.

"Leave my son alone, you ghost," she spat at Danny, aiming her weapon at him while Phantom lay behind her back.

"What?" Danny's smile fell, and he stared at her and said, "But that's not--"

He didn't have a chance to complete his sentence before she shot him. A ray hit him right in the chest, pushing him back and slamming him against the wall. When he looked up again, her stern expression didn't change, and her weapon did not lower.

_Fuck_ , thought Phantom, and he pulled himself up behind her. "Miss, um, Mom--"

"Don't worry, Danny," she said over her shoulder. "Mommy's gonna take care of this nasty specter."

She powered up the gun again, causing Danny (the real one) to flinch. "Please, listen to me..."

She did not. When she pulled the trigger once more, Phantom saw one last heartbroken look in the ghost's eyes before he phased through the wall and fled from his mother.

Danny's mom blew on the gun and flipped her hair. "See? That ghost was no problem."

Phantom picked his jaw up and looked at her. "Why did you shoot at him?"

She frowned. "Because he was a ghost, of course. You can never trust a ghost."

"Why not?"

She looked like he had just asked her the dumbest question on the planet. "Because they're evil. Malicious. Violent."

"That's not true," Phantom said, truthfully feeling a little offended.

Danny's mom only laughed and patted his head. "I'm sorry, who is the ghost expert here? Me or you?" She smiled at him and said, "Don't worry, I'll protect you from any ghost that tries to harm you."

Phantom would have argued further, but the resolution in her voice scared him a little. For the first time, he found himself grateful for being in Danny's body, because he wasn't sure what she would have done to him if she saw him as a ghost.

"Come on, go back to bed. There's still a couple of hours left before morning," she told him, guiding him back to Danny's bed. After he was settled in, she started to leave the room, but he stopped her by asking, "Wait...did you add anything to your gun?"

She smiled at him and said, "Nope. I told you it works on ghosts."

"Oh," he said, feeling his stomach organ churn.

Danny's mom left, only pausing at the doorway to tell him, "Good night, sleep tight, and don't let the bad ghosts bite."

Phantom lay in bed for a long time, but he didn't sleep. He stared down at Danny's hand...at _his_ hand.

Danny was dead, and he was fully human, which meant this body was now his.

That thought burned in his mind until the light from out the window grew brighter, and the alarm clock beeped from its fallen spot on the floor.

Jazz knocked on his door. "Oh, good, you're awake," she said. She grumbled something inaudible then told him, "Mom and Dad want you to go to school."

Phantom hesitated. "...School?"

"I know," she said with a huff. She rolled her eyes and said in a mimicking tone, "It doesn't matter if you got into an accident that almost killed you and made you lose your memory! As long as you can walk, you can walk to school." She shook her head then asked, "Are you feeling better, at least?"

"Um," Phantom said, "define 'better'."

"Whatever. I'll drive you to school." And she left.

Phantom stayed in bed for several moments while the alarm continued to beep sadly. And then...he felt his bladder act up. He knew, from talking to ghosts who were humans, what this meant.

"Fuck," he muttered. "I have to pee."

After wandering around the top floor of the house, he finally found what he was pretty sure was called the bathroom. Figuring out the mechanics of the toilet and the faucet were easy enough, as well as the mehcanics of the actual peeing itself. He tried not to look at Danny's private parts while he did his business...even though he wasn't sure how long he would be spending in this body.

He went downstairs, which was difficult for someone who spent most of his existence flying, but he reached the bottom safely and found Danny's family sitting around a table with some stuff on it.

As he watched, Jazz scooped up a spoonful of the stuff inside her bowl, and she stuffed it into her mouth and chewed. Oh, so it was food.

Jazz caught him staring and asked, "Well? Are you going to eat?"

"Oh," he said. That's right, didn't humans need to eat to survive? He sat at the table, across from Jazz.

Phantom looked at the bowl in front of Jazz and noticed it was filled with a white liquid with pieces of multicolored circles swimming in it. He turned his attention to the jug that held the same white liquid, the box with a cartoon toucan on it that he guessed held the small circles, and the empty bowl in front of him. Well, he could put two and two together, and in no time he poured himself a bowl of milk and cereal and brought a spoonful to his mouth.

Holy Unworld! That tasted great. I mean, food did exist in the Ghost Zone for those who missed eating, but it all had the same acidic taste of ectoplasm. This was different. It was tooth-rottingly sweet.

Jazz raised an eyebrow at his dreamy expression. "You look like you're enjoying your Froot Loops."

"Froot Loops," he repeated the name. "We didn't have this in the Ghost Zone." Or maybe they did, but it wouldn't have tasted the same.

Jazz lowered her spoon and frowned. "Ghosts. Are you still going on about that?"

Phantom stopped chewing. He cast his eyes downward and twirled the spoon in his bowl. "I'm right," he said. "You were wrong about the fake memory stuff."

"Oh really?" she said, sounding like she didn't believe him. "Why is that?"

Phantom opened his mouth to speak, but his words died when he noticed Danny's mom. She had her back on them and was washing the dishes, but he thought he saw her tilt her ear toward them. Had she been listening?

"It's fine," Jazz sighed. "We'll talk about it after school. We're going to be late."

Phantom nodded and finished his Froot Loops, happy not to talk. Not with the ghost hunter in the room.

After the breakfast was drained, Jazz made for the door. Phantom followed her, but she blocked him with a hand and raised an eyebrow at his clothes. "You're not going to school in pyjamas, are you?"

Phantom glanced down at himself and saw that he was still wearing the same soft clothes he had slept in. "Uhh..."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "Go change clothes."

"Right," Phantom said and went back to Danny's room.

Honestly, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to wear. Ghosts didn't have different clothes for different occasions (most of them spent their entire existence in the same set of clothes--either whatever they had died in, or if they were born in the Zone like Phantom was, then whatever they thought made them look scarier), and the Fentons weren't exactly a good example of what humans normally wear.

As he rummaged through Danny's stuff, he came across a photograph. It showed Danny with those two friends of his--the ones who greeted Phantom when he first woke up. The trio stood in a grassy park, smiling, their arms linked together.

Phantom was filled with guilt as he thought back to Danny's ghost, begging him for his body back. If only he knew how to do that. He set the photo aside, but at least it helped him in one thing: the three teenagers were wearing regular clothes. He managed to find some clothes that matched the ones Danny wore in the picture, and when he returned downstairs, he was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a red-and-white T-shirt.

Jazz was waiting for him. The two teens walked outside and entered her car, a small convertible. He sat in the passenger seat and copied what Jazz did to strap her seatbelt, but his mind was still thinking about that photo of Danny he found. After a moment's hesitation, he said, "I saw him."

Jazz's hand stopped in the middle of turning the key in the ignition. "Saw who?"

"Danny," he told her.

Jazz pursed her lips. She started the car and drove. "If you saw him, then where is he now?"

"Your mom shot at him."

"What?"

"He's a ghost. I don't think she recognized him, but...well, he's dead."

Phantom finally learned what the seatbelt's function was when he lurched forward as Jazz suddenly stopped the car. She gripped the wheel in tight fists and breathed through flared nostrils. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't say that," she pleaded. "It was bad enough when I thought you... I thought you might die. But you didn't. You're alive."

Phantom felt guilt gnaw at him from hearing Jazz. What could he tell her other than _Actually, your brother_ did _die, oops haha, sorry?_

Jazz took in a deep breath, then she kept driving like nothing happened. Phantom stayed quiet.

Eventually, the car stopped, and Jazz unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out. Phantom looked at the building they arrived at. Numerous humans around his general age were either milling about or going inside.

School. He never went to one himself, but he heard some stories from Sidney. They weren't nice stories.

Phantom gulped and exited the car. No sooner had he done that than he noticed the two teens rushing toward him.

"Danny!" that girl from last night said. What was her name...Sam. She hesitated and asked, "Do you...remember us?"

"You mean to ask if Danny is back," Phantom told her. That gave her the answer she needed, and she deflated.

Tucker glanced between them, then hooked his arm around Phantom's shoulder and said, "Hey, if you're amnesiac, you need someone to guide you through school again, right?"

"I'm not..." He sighed. Then he eyed the building warily and asked, "Are there bullies?"

"Oh, definitely," Tucker answered, which made his stomach sink.

His time at school actually went by pretty smoothly. He had wondered if anyone would notice that he wasn't Danny, but nobody paid him much attention, not even the teachers. He managed to breeze by two subjects already--one was math, which was admittedly gibberish to him, but Tucker told him no one understood it anyway. The second one he knew better--English literature. He had visited Ghostwriter's library a bunch of times in the Zone and knew about Lord of the Flies when the teacher asked him about it.

Sam raised an eyebrow at him. "You don't remember your name, but you remember reading a class assignment?"

Phantom almost screamed out _"I'm not Danny"_ again, but he held himself back. He knew they would never believe him, not unless...

"Look, Sam, Tucker," he said nervously. He wasn't sure if they would react the same way Jazz did, but considering how close friends they were, then they probably would. The two waited for him expectantly while he tried to pick out the right words. "Danny...your friend...he's--"

"Hey, Fentina!" a sharp voice interrupted him.

"Oh bother," Sam grumbled.

Confused, Phantom turned around to the source of the voice. What greeted him was a tall and muscular blonde human in a letterman's jacket, sneering down at him. "I didn't see you at the beginning of the school day. I think we have some beating to catch up on," he taunted and slammed a fist into his palm.

"Oh," Phantom said numbly. "You're a bully."

The blonde released a laugh that sounded like a pig getting choked. "Me, a bully? More like you're a loser who deserves to get bullied."

"That...makes no sense."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because blonde dude's face turned beet red, and he picked up Phantom by the collar and slammed him into a row of lockers. At this point, pain was becoming a constant in Phantom's new, stolen life.

"Lay off, Dash," Sam snapped at him.

" _You_ lay off, Manson," Dash bit back. "I'm only interested in Fenturd here."

"I hear you mispronouncing Fenton a lot," Phantom said in spite of his nerves. "It's really not that hard a name to memorize."

Dash's face turned an even deeper shade of red, and he punched Phantom in the face. All Phantom could think was, _Man, Danny would not be happy if he found out I broke his face._ Then Dash opened a random locker and stuffed him inside.

"Have fun, FenTON," he yelled at him and slammed the locker door shut.

This was fine. Phantom could handle being trapped inside a tight space with no intangibility to bail him out. I mean, he was already trapped inside this body, wasn't he? Haha.

But after the first few minutes passed, he grew nervous. There was no way he would be left here forever, right? Oh, Ancients, he was going to die just like Sidney, alone in a school locker.

Apparently, that was not to be, because suddenly the air inside the locker grew colder. A soft green glow washed over it, and Phantom felt two cold hands grip his arms. A tingle ran across him. He recognized the sensation: intangibility. The arms pulled, and he was tugged through the locker wall and brought face to face with none other than Danny.

Phantom blinked. "You again."

Danny scowled. "You're still in my body."

"Well, yeah," Phantom said simply. "If I left, it would die."

Danny pulled him closer so he can feel his glare more intensely, probably. Phantom felt it all right, and he squinted his eyes because _dear Clockwork_ , were ghost eyes always this bright?

"I asked you before, and I'm asking you again," Danny growled. "Give me back my body."

"And I already told you, I can't," Phantom retorted.

"Why not? It's mine!" His grip on Phantom's arms were tight now. "I can't live as a ghost!"

"I mean, technically you wouldn't really be living because--"

"I'm not dead!" Danny denied. "I can't...I can't be..."

His grip on Phantom felt weak now. His eyes were dimmer.

Phantom gulped and hesitantly patted Danny's arm in what he hoped was a reassuring way. "Hey, it's fine. Lots of ghosts I know went through a crisis when they died."

"Did they have parents who wanted to hunt them down?" Danny asked softly. Phantom paused and didn't know how to respond.

Well, they were alone, at least. The hallway was empty except for the two of them, and he had a feeling that whatever teacher he had would be wondering where Danny Fenton was. He wasn't sure if this fact was a good thing or a bad thing, because then Sam and Tucker would not see proof of their friend being dead, and he wasn't sure if that knowledge was good or bad.

"No," Danny said, snapping Phantom out of his thoughts. "No. I'm not going to stay like this while you live my life."

"But I already told you..." Phantom began, but Danny's eyes returned their brightness, and he stared directly at Phantom.

"I'm a ghost. I can possess stuff, right?"

Phantom's eyes widened, and that was all the answer Danny needed before he overshadowed him.

A minute later, the bell rung, and students filed out of classrooms. He heard footsteps approach him and turned around to see his friends.

"Thank god, you made it out!" Tucker said once he saw him. "I swear, I told Lancer that Dash stuffed you in a locker again, but he didn't believe me..." He trailed off and pointed out, "Your eyes are green."

"They are?" Danny asked. "Huh, that's weird. I'm not surprised about Mr. Lancer, though."

"Um, didn't you technically only meet him today or something?"

"Today? I wish," Danny said, rolling his green eyes. "That guy's been following our class since third grade."

Tucker gaped. "You remember?"

"Third grade? Unfortunately."

Sam was staring. She stepped forward. "Danny?" she slowly asked.

Danny grinned. "Hey, Sam."

She laughed and hugged him. "You're back! How?"

Danny shrugged. "Come on, you can't expect me to forget you forever, can you?"

Sam and Tucker smiled. Danny smiled. In the back of Danny's head, Phantom mentally frowned.

The day passed. Danny was back. He took his classes as always. He got bullied by Dash as always, but that didnt bother him much. Funny how small things become once you've literally died.

_Not_. Danny didn't die. He told himself that.

More than once, he felt a hand twitch on its own. He sent a mental frown to Phantom and told him, _Why won't you leave already?_

_Dude, how many times do I have to explain to you that I can't?_

_But I'm in my own body now._

_Temporarily. Overshadowing someone isn't the same as taking their body._

Danny tuned him out and continued with his day.

There was a price, however. Phantom tried to warn him, but he got ignored. As the day went by, Danny felt himself grow exhausted at an awfully quick pace.

Tucker noticed first. "Are you okay? You're breathing heavily, and it's not even P.E. yet."

"I'm fine," Danny panted, but he didn't look that way. His skin was pale and covered with sweat.

"No, you're not," Sam said with a frown. "It's the portal--you shouldn't be walking around school after a near-death accident like that."

"I'm not dead!" Danny snapped, shocking his friends with his sudden volume. He faltered. "I mean...I need to go use the bathroom."

They let him go, though their eyes followed his back as he left. He entered the nearest restroom he found and immediately splashed his face with water.

_You should stop overshadowing me_ , Phantom suggested.

Danny scowled. He gripped the sink to steady his shaking hands. "I'm not overshadowing anyone. This is my body."

_I'm not saying it's not, but right now, you're a ghost. Prolonged overshadowing isn't healthy._

Danny gritted his teeth. "So, what? I let you steal my life again?"

_It's just until we can figure out how to switch us back_ , Phantom said, but Danny could tell when he lied.

"You don't think we can be switched back, can you?"

Phantom hesitated. Luckily for him, he didn't need to think of a reply--just then, Danny shivered, and a blue mist escaped from his mouth.

Danny frowned. "What was that?"

Oh no, Phantom thought.

Suddenly, a shrill voice cried out, "Trespasser!" Danny jumped and whipped around to face whoever spoke. He squinted his eyes and said, "Who the fuck?"

The speaker would have looked like a regular scrawny freshman, except his skin was gray and transparent, and his torso was sticking halfway through a closed bathroom stall. It was a ghost, obviously.

Truthfully, Danny was almost disappointed in how un-scary he seemed. As a child, he had nightmares about ghosts from the stories his parents told him, but the specter in front of him was far from intimidating. He looked like one of the geeks that Dash and his gang would have picked on if he were alive.

The ghost pointed a finger at Danny and repeated in his nasally voice, "Trespasser! This is my haunt."

Danny eyed the row of empty stalls and asked, "You mean the restroom?"

"Yes! I died in this place, and I chose to make it my haunt instead of going to the Ghost Zone. I don't need another ghost like you to take it from me!"

"Okay, Moaning Myrtle, calm down," Danny spoke. "Why would I even want to steal a restroom? Also, what do you mean by calling me a ghost?"

The ghost left his stall and floated over Danny with a scowl. "I'm not stupid. I can tell when a ghost is overshadowing someone. And if you would steal a body, then you would steal a haunt."

Danny bristled. "I didn't steal this body! It was mine in the first place."

"Oh, sure, and I bet you're going to say this haunt has always been yours!"

"I'm not interested in your fucking water closet!" Danny bit back. "And this body is mine! I was born in it. I lived in it. I...it can't belong to anyone else."

The ghost narrowed his eyes. Then he said, "You're a nasty ass liar, you know that?"

"I'm not lying!"

"Whatever! You're clearly overshadowing a human, and you're clearly still standing inside my haunt, so..."

_Um, maybe you should leave the bathroom_ , Phantom suggested. But Danny stood his ground, glaring at the ghost with his fists by his side. He was tired of this--tired of his death being pointed out to him.

"What are you going to do about it, huh? Give me a swirly?" he gibed.

The ghost's expression darkened. He raised his arm, and several stalls began to rumble. Danny faltered, and his anger melted into apprehension.

_Run_ , Phantom said. This time, Danny decided it was a good idea to listen.

He managed to make it halfway to the exit when all the stalls suddenly exploded. Jets of slightly glowing water burst forth and hit Danny in the back, pushing him the rest of the way out and also drenching him completely.

He sluggishly picked himself off the wet floor. When he glanced to his side, he saw Kwan pausing mid-step. "...I'll just use the restroom on the second floor," Kwan said, turned a 180 and left.

Danny flipped himself over and faced the ghost floating in the restroom's doorway. "I left your stupid washroom alone, so can you leave?" he barked.

"But how do I know you won't come back?" the ghost challenged. "And you're still overshadowing the poor human."

Danny laughed mirthlessly. "Poor human?"

The ghost didn't seem to understand the irony in that. He tackled Danny, phasing the both of them through the wall and into the adjacent hallway.

A few stragglers were still idling in the hallway when they burst in. At the sudden sight of the ghost, most of them screamed and scrambled away. Only a few stayed behind: some redheaded human in a basketball shirt, and Danny's friends, Sam and Tucker.

"Danny!" Sam called out and ran to his side. Tucker froze in place. He lifted a shaky finger at the toilet ghost and stammered, "That's a g-ghost."

The toilet ghost floated away from Danny and crossed his arms. "Yeah, duh," he replied. "I'm not the only one, though."

Tucker was about to ask him what he meant by that, but then Danny began to heave. Sam hovered over him worriedly, but even she had to step away when his coughing became intense. He lurched over--then coughed himself out of his body.

Ghost Danny popped out and landed on the floor. Behind him, Phantom sighed and fell onto his side.

Sam gaped and stared between them, her mouth forming wordless questions, before she gulped and said to Danny, "Phantom?"

Danny frowned and said, "No, I'm Danny! _He's_ Phantom." He pointed at the person inside his human body.

Sam chuckled weakly. "I think you must be confused. He's Danny, because he's a human. And you're Phantom, because youre a g..."

"He's right," Phantom interrupted from his spot on the floor. He pushed himself up, still panting heavily, and said, "That's what I've been trying to tell you. I'm not Danny. He is."

Sam stared at him, then back at Danny. "But...but that would mean--" She trailed off, and her face turned pale.

Whatever heartfelt conversation might have followed was cut off by another splash of water aimed at Danny. He growled and turned on the toilet ghost. "Will you go already?"

The ghost's fists were surrounded by swirling water (which Danny _really_ hoped was clean). He shook his head and barked at him, "Not until you leave this school."

"The school? I thought your haunt was only the restroom."

"It was! But then you made fun of it, so I've decided to make this entire building my territory!"

He shot another beam of water at Danny. Danny grinded his teeth and wished the water would stop in mid-air...and to his surprise, it did. A transparent green shield suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking the water and keeping him dry. Danny blinked and floated back in surprise, and the shield dissapeared.

Phantom was watching him with interest. When the shield disappeared, he called out to Danny and told him, "Use your ghost rays!"

"My what?" was Danny's response right before another jet of water came at him. This time, he didn't summon an ecto-shield in time, and he got slammed back against a row of lockers. As he picked himself up, he noticed that redhead from earlier, who had been staring, trembling, as the whole encounter went down. Ah, fuck, what was his name again? He was in Danny's P.E. class. The poor boy was shivering like a leaf, which made sense--Danny would have done the same if he saw a real ghost when he was still human.

The toilet ghost approached Danny, but stopped and scowled at the redhead. "Leave, human," he ordered. "This doesn't involve you."

The guy (His name started with a W, Danny remembered. Walt? Wes?) stared at the ghost for a moment, then hurriedly nodded and ran. That left the ghost flying in front of Danny.

"Your ghost ray!" Phantom repeated from behind the toilet ghost, as if that would make Danny understand what he was saying. "Just think about shooting him with your hands!"

Shooting him...with his hands? That made no sense, but Danny did as he was told. He made a finger gun and aimed it at the ghost, then imagined a _pew! pew!_ come out.

_Pew!_ came out the ray and shot the ghost right at his chest.

The opponent had only time to widen his eyes before he was slammed against the opposite wall and dissolved into (grossly) glowing water.

Danny slowly blinked. "...Functioning fingerguns," he said. "That's useful."

"What the actual fuck, dude?"

He turned and saw Tucker approach him, wearing a bewildered expression. He gestured wildly to Danny and said, "You're a ghost now? And your body is conscious on its own?"

"Actually, it's conscious because a ghost is inside," he replied, not-so-subtly glaring at Phantom as he said so.

Phantom threw his (or Danny's...whatever) arms up and said, "I didn't choose to be stuck in your body, okay? It was an accident."

Tucker rubbed his forehead. "I still don't understand. How is all this happenning?"

Before either Danny could speak, Sam's voice suddenly cut through and said, "I killed you."

Danny stared at Sam. She was hugging her arms, eyes downcast, and still looked pale as a sheet. "You're a ghost," she said softly. "That means you've died. And I killed you."

Danny felt that same tightness in his chest, not exactly squeezing any heart, but something similar. "I'm not dead," he tried again, but after repeating that sentence so many times, the lie sounded weak even to himself.

Phantom sent him a pitying gaze. Sam bit her lips and squeezed herself tighter. "Yes, you are. It was the portal accident. Somehow, you died and got replaced by...whoever this is." She gestured weakly to Phantom, then choked up and continued in a wavering voice, "It was my fault. I told you to go inside that portal. You're--you're _dead_ , because of me. I killed you."

Seeing her like that, hearing her, made any sorry feelings Danny had for himself disappear. All he cared about was wiping that melancholy from his friend's eyes. "No," he told her firmly. "It wasn't your fault. I agreed. I--" A lump formed in his throat, and he swallowed it down before saying, "I'm dead because of my own fault."

He could feel Phantom's eyes boring into him. Probably, that ghost (ex-ghost?) was thinking something along the lines of _Fucking finally! You admit it to yourself at last_ , but the emotional intensity of the situation was likely what prevented him from voicing that thought out loud.

Sam raised her eyes and met his sadly. Tucker stepped forward, his brows drawn together. "But...but that can't be it!" he protested. He grabbed Phantom's arm and pointed out, "Your body is still alive, isn't it? Can't we...I dont know...redo the accident so it gets you back in your body the same way Phantom got inside yours?"

Danny perked up and felt a sliver of hope grow inside him, but Phantom was quick to shake his head and say, "That won't be so easy. The Ghost Zone is always shifting. Whatever spot I was in when the portal thing happened, it won't be the same place for Danny."

"Oh," Tucker said, deflating. His eyes turned downcast, and his hands fell limply off Phantom's arm. "I guess it _can_ be it, then."

Phantom looked at the trio of friends, their broken expressions. He honestly didn't see what the big fuss was about, but he hated seeing them so sad, so he hurriedly added in a forcefully positive tone, "That's okay, though! Difficult doesn't have to mean impossible! I'm sure we can...uh..."

He trailed off after spotting a person at the end of the hallway. Confused, Danny turned to see who he was looking at. He found his sister, slack-jawed, her eyes darting between him and Phantom.

"Jazz!" he said, then looked down and noticed his ghostly appearance. "Um, I can explain."

Jazz didn't leave him room to, because she promptly fainted.

Danny rushed forward to grab her, but of course, she fell right through his arms. He winced when she hit her face on the hard floor. Tucker came forward and checked her.

"She's fine," he said with a cross between a smile and a grimace.

Jazz's eyes fluttered awake. She groaned and turned her head to the side. On the wall next to her was a silly cartoon infographic of flu symptoms. It took her mind a minute to recognize it, but she was at the school infirmary.

"You're awake?" asked a voice nearby. She turned her head to the other side and saw her brother's face.

"Danny..." She frowned and sat up on the infirmary bed. Her face hurt. "What happened?"

"You don't remember?"

Jazz tried to recall what brought her here. She remembered seeing seeing Danny, and...ghost Danny? She shook her head. "Must have been a dream," she mumbled.

"What?"

She saw Danny watching her curiously. She sighed and ran a hand across her face, which still ached for some reason. "I remember seeing you standing next to your ghost. I think you might have...died. But that couldn't have been possible."

"You think that was a dream."

Danny's expression was unreadable. Jazz frowned. "It had to be. Ghosts aren't real." Mentally, she added, _I hope not._

Danny averted his eyes from her. She wondered if she said something wrong, but then Danny stood up from his chair and said, "You slipped and hit your face, so we brought you to the school nurse. You need some rest...I'll leave you alone."

It sounded reasonable enough, but something nagged at her. Danny wouldn't meet her eyes, instead choosing to fidget with the hem of his shirt. She had a feeling he was lying.

"Danny," she called. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Her brother stiffened. It looked like he was about to say something, but he must have changed his mind at the last minute because he left the room wordlessly.

Phantom exited the school infirmary. "She's okay," he told the air.

Danny visualized in front of him, wearing a frown. "I heard what went down. She thinks it wasn't real."

Phantom shrugged. He felt a little bad, but he wasn't sure he could handle her reaction if he told her that her brother was really dead...again. The first time he tried didn't go so cheerfully.

"Where are your friends?" Phantom asked, choosing to change the subject.

"You mean Sam and Tuck? What do you think?" He chuckled humorlessly, then gazed at his boots and murmured, "They just discovered that ghosts exist and their friend is dead. Of course they needed some time to process that."

Phantom bit his lip. "We'll find some way to switch us back. Maybe."

That _"maybe"_ didn't sound so reassuring, and Danny didn't look reassured. Phantom grimaced and tried to think of a better way to lift his spirits, but then he heard footsteps approach. Danny made himself invisible while Phantom turned around and saw a familiar couple in orange and teal come toward them.

"Danno!" Danny's dad greeted him. "The school called--is Jazzy-pants alright?"

"She's fine," Phantom said with a steady voice. "She just had some low blood sugar is all."

The man patted his shoulder, then entered the room where Jazz was held. His wife went to follow him, but Phantom stopped her by calling, "Uh...Mom."

She spun to him and smiled. "What is it, sweetie?"

Phantom hesitated. He fidgeted with his shirt and asked, "Did you really mean what you said last night--about all ghosts being bad?"

The woman frowned. "Of course I did. Was I wrong?"

"It's just, well..." He focused on a random locker and said, "What if your son...I mean, what if I became a ghost? What would you do to me then?"

He braved a glance at her and saw a shadow cross her expression. She hesitated for a moment before replying carefully, "I don't like to think about that. I choose to believe that when you die, it won't be violent. I'll make sure of that." She forced a smile, then ruffled Phantom's hair and added, "But that doesn't matter right now. You're still alive and human. As long as you're with me, then I know that any ghost who looks like you is an imposter."

Phantom's stomach sank, and he swallowed down a lump that formed in his throat. Danny's mom only smiled at him once more before she followed her husband to see Jazz.

Danny didn't reappear. Phantom didn't see him for the rest of the day. But in that moment, he thought he heard a choked sob come from the air behind him.


	2. anti-bullying psa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> phantom makes some friends :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is supposed to be based on darknymfa's phic phight prompt, but while i was writing it i forgot what the original prompt was, so i forgot that they werent supposed to gain each other's memories...oops. i hope that's fine

After day 10 of being stuck inside someone else's body, Phantom finally got used to waking up in the human world.

He opened his eyes to be greeted by the now-familiar star-shaped stickers stuck on the roof. He was starting to hate those plastic stars. While he at first appreciated how neatly Danny had placed them in the shapes of constellations, now they only served to remind him that he was _still_ living Danny's life while the real guy's ghost was in who-knows-where.

Phantom sat up in bed and squinted as the rays of sunlight hit his eyes through the window. He had learned in science class that the sun was a star, and Phantom hated it as much as he hated the fake stars on the ceiling. He missed the blissful darkness of the Ghost Zone. Everything was so dang bright in the human world.

Phantom threw back his (really Danny's) covers and got up. After a week and a half of living as a human, he had settled into a morning routine. Get out of bed, ignoring the terrible pull of gravity on your stolen human body. Go to the bathroom, pointedly refusing to look at the mirror to see Danny's face. Do your business without feeling too weird about your nut not being yours, wash your hands and brush your teeth, go back to Danny's room and change clothes. Stop and gaze at the photograph sitting on Danny's desk which you never moved since you found it, showing Danny and his friends, and wonder where Danny's ghost was.

It's been a week and a half since Danny disappeared after their fight with the toilet ghost. The toilet ghost had unsurprisingly reformed in his haunt in the Casper High restroom, which Phantom knew after one startling bathroom break, but he seemed content just to chill without causing trouble. Danny never reappeared. Phantom honestly felt annoyed at Danny for leaving him to handle his life on his own, which felt very awkward when he knew next to nothing about it.

Or maybe not. Phantom hissed and pressed a hand against his temples as an image assaulted his brain. The smell of the wilderness, a dog's fur under his hands, firewood burning while he and the other Fentons sat with their Aunt Alicia around the firelight, the stars shining above them. Phantom pinched his arm and twisted it, and the image disappeared.

He knew a thing or two about human anatomy, and he knew that he currently had Danny's brain--including his memories. The longer he spent in this body, the more memories he gained access to. How much longer until he remembered all of Danny's life? And if he gained Danny's earthly memories, will he lose his own memories of the Ghost Zone? Will he even be able to tell himself apart from Danny?

Phantom tried not to think about it too much.

He went downstairs to the kitchen. Danny's parents (Maddie and Jack, he had learned were their names) were, as usual, tinkering with some anti-ghost weaponry at the table. Phantom focused on anything but those weapons and tried not to feel too threatened by them. They didn't even work on him, not while he was in their son's body.

There had been a few small ghosts that came through the portal since it had opened, but they never lasted long before either Fenton captured them. Phantom didn't know what they did to the ghosts, and he was too scared to peek into the lab to find out. All he knew was that he sometimes imagined hearing echoing screams rise from the basement. He was just glad none of the ghosts had been someone he knew so far.

Jazz didn't seem bothered by the weapons. She was eating her breakfast while simultaneously reading a book about psychology. At first, Phantom had assumed she studied psychology because she still thought he was crazy for believing himself to be an ex-ghost, but he quickly realized that she simply liked learning about the subject.

He sat down, ignoring the tremors that came from being too close to the ghost hunters, and didn't speak as he ate his breakfast--eggs and bacon, which wasn't as sweet as cereal, but not bad. Apparently, Maddie and/or Jack often accidentally got some ectoplasm from their research onto the food they cooked, which gave it the tangy aftertaste of ecto-plasm. That only made Phantom feel more nostalgic for his old afterlife.

Jazz looked up from her book to check the clock in the kitchen, scraped off the remainder of her meal, and stood up. "Ready for school, Danny?" she said.

Phantom tensed his jaw. "Yeah," he said and stood up with Danny's backpack. He tried not to show any discomfort at being called Danny. After all, he had given up trying to convince the Fentons of his true identity after that first day.

Just like the previous ten days, Jazz drove him to school. He watched the scenery that passed by through the window. He used to find it captivating, how different the landscape was from the Zone and how many humans and animals were alive in this world. Now, he just wished once more that he could return home already.

The now-familiar building of Casper High appeared in front of them, and they exited the car after Jazz parked. Phantom let his stolen body go on autopilot as it moved toward class. Honestly, he used to think the Ghost Zone was boring, but the human world was even more mundane. He just went to the same classrooms every day to learn something about the same old subjects.

As he passed by a hallway, he caught a glimpse of a black-clad girl with a black ponytail. He felt his body tense up as he met Sam's violently violet eyes for a brief second. Then they turned away from each other and moved on.

It was awkward, being anywhere near Danny's old friends. Sam and Tucker were the only other humans who really knew about Phantom, and it didn't make things any easier between them. Imagine your best friend was dead and some stranger took his place, which nobody knew about but you...

They didn't talk much.

"Okay, that's it," some girl said next to him. "What is going on between you and your friends?"

Phantom blinked and turned around to look at her. She had blonde hair with a flower pin holding it away from her face, and she was crossing her arms and looking directly at him. It took him a few slow moments before he asked, "Are you talking to me?"

The blonde rolled her eyes and said, "Yes, I'm talking to you, Fenton. You, Manson, and Foley used to be inseparable. Now, it almost seems like you guys are avoiding each other. So what's up?"

Phantom winced and fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. How could he possibly describe that the reason they weren't friends anymore was because he was someone else? After failing to come up with a decent explanation, he decided to use the good ol' method popular among ghosts and growled, "None of your business."

The girl blinked, then smirked. "Wow, Danny. You're a lot tougher than I remember."

Phantom clenched his jaw and turned away. Even with him gaining Danny's memories, it was getting harder each day to pretend to be him. He really wished Danny would come back already, if only to give him some pointers on how to live his life.

He barely made it past a row of lockers before a fist suddenly slammed against a locker right in front of him. Phantom jumped back and looked up into the angry blue eyes of one Dash Baxter. He slumped. "Oh. You again."

Dash gritted his teeth and growled, "I've been holding it together for a week, but I really need to take out my anger on someone."

"What is it this time?" Phantom said noncommittally. "A failed test?"

"It's the fucking locker," Dash said, his breath burning in Phantom's face.

"A...locker?"

Dash grabbed Phantom by his shirt and raised him, his blue eyes glaring holes into him. "The fucking locker! Ever since a row of 'em was mysteriously dented, I had to get a new one near the band room. Which, sure, no biggie, right? But god, every Wednesday there's band practice, and those _geeks_ have to come near me with their stupid spittle and annoying loud instruments. And guess what day it is today?"

"Wednesday?" Phantom guessed.

"Fucking Wednesday!" Dash slammed Phantom against the wall of lockers, which made his head vibrate with pain. At least Phantom knew why Sidney hated bullies so much. They really, really sucked.

Dash was about to give Phantom another painful attack, but just then the bell rang, and everyone filed to class. Dash gave Phantom one more shove before letting go and sneering. "Saved by the bell, but not for long. Get ready for a beating later."

Phantom had a sarcastic comment in mind, but he knew from experience that angering someone stronger than you was never a good idea. So he just glared at Dash's back while Dash stalked away. As he did, Phantom thought he saw what looked like a wisp of smoke following after the jock...but when he blinked, it disappeared.

Phantom scratched his head as he glared at the math worksheet on the desk in front of him. Of all the subjects, geometry was the worst. He never thought that it was important for him to know (maybe because shapes continually shifted in the Ghost Zone), so he never bothered learning it. Apparently, Danny's memories didn't do him much good, either.

Tucker sat next to him. When Danny was still around, that seating arrangement was probably awesome--two best friends sitting right next to each other. Now, it was just awkward. He and Tucker did their best to pretend that the other didn't exist...which was why he was surprised when Tucker leaned in and whispered, "Want some help?"

Phantom looked up at him in surprise. He was watching him from behind those thick glasses of his. The human fidgeted and added, "Don't get me wrong, I still think your whole...situation is weird. But no one deserves to be tortured by school material."

Phantom pursed his lips and looked back to his paper. Of the two of Danny's friends, Tucker had always been the more open. Sam, on the other hand...maybe she already wore black daily before Phantom entered the picture, but he couldn't look at her and not think that it looked like funeral attire, worn for the death of her real friend.

"Sam hates me," Phantom whispered.

"She doesn't hate you," Tucker responded. "She just misses Danny. So do I."

Phantom gazed at the printed numbers sadly. "I don't know where he is. The last I saw or heard from him was on the same day you guys last did."

He didn't need to look at Tucker to know that his words disappointed him. There was a tense silence between them for a moment, then Tucker broke it by saying, "You need to find the cosine."

"Huh?"

Tucker tapped his paper and said, "The first question. You need to find the cosine of the triangle to know the missing angle."

"Oh," Phantom said, feeling stupid.

Tucker spent the rest of the period whispering methods to help him solve their geometry problems when the teacher wasn't listening. Phantom kept sneaking glances at the boy. Tucker's eyes were glued to the schoolwork, refusing to look at Phantom, probably to make it easier to pretend that he wasn't inside his best friend's body. Phantom didn't mind. It was more than enough for him that Tucker even considered talking to him.

Class ended, and Phantom and Tucker gathered their things and stood. Phantom waited for Tucker to leave, but he stayed around while everyone else filed out the classroom. Phantom fidgeted.

"Thank you," he said, figuring that was what the human was waiting for him to say. "For, you know. Helping me out."

Tucker pushed his glasses up and scratched his neck. "I figured it wasn't fair for me to judge you for...being you." _As in, not being Danny._ "From what I gathered, you didn't ask to be in your situation, either."

"Ancients, no," Phantom confirmed. "I hate being alive."

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "I thought ghosts generally want to be alive again."

"Why'd you think that?"

Tucker shrugged. "It's what's always shown in horror movies."

Phantom didn't know what sorts of ghost myths were broadcasted in human-made movies. He almost opened his mouth to argue, but he hesitated.

Did he hate being alive? He hated being thrust here from the Ghost Zone against his will, and he hated having to live someone else's life. But not everything in the human world sucked. It was definitely more peaceful than the Zone.

"I think I just hate being alive as someone I'm not," Phantom said.

Tucker softened. Phantom wished he didn't. Ghosts rarely showed sympathy to each other, and the way Tucker looked at him was closer to pity. Phantom averted his eyes and busied himself with Danny's school supplies.

"Well," Tucker said, "I can't imagine what you're going through, but it sounds like a lot. I know you're not Danny...but that doesn't mean we can't be friends."

Phantom looked up in surprise and found Tucker smiling at him timidly. He hadn't thought about how lonely he had gotten since getting stuck inside Danny's body. He missed his friends from the Ghost Zone, and Tucker missed Danny. Maybe befriending each other could fill a hole in both their hearts.

Then he saw the doorway behind Tucker and faltered. There stood a girl with a black ponytail wearing black clothes, like funeral attire, and staring between the two with a look bordering on betrayal.

Tucker followed his gaze and froze at the sight of her. "Sam!" he called out, but Sam had turned away and was walking rapidly down the hallway. He glanced back at Phantom, but Phantom had shifted his focus back to Danny's schoolthings. Tucker hesitated for one second before dashing out the classroom after Sam.

Phantom tried not to feel hurt. He knew Sam felt guilty for inadvertently causing the whole switch between him and Danny. He just wished she didn't act like it was _his_ fault. He looked around the classroom and found himself alone...aside from one other student.

As soon as Phantom caught him staring, the redheaded boy quickly looked away and pretended to pack away his things. All he succeeded in doing was drop his pencil, and he cursed and dropped on his knees to pick it up from where it had rolled away on the floor.

Phantom recognized the boy. He was the only other human besides Tucker and Sam who knew about him because he was there during Danny's ghost fight. Wesley, he'd heard the teacher call him. This was not the first time Phantom found Wesley watching him, yet the human never approached him or said anything. It was unnerving.

Phantom walked toward Wesley just in time for the boy to stand up and come face to face with Phantom. Wesley squeaked and jumped back, dropping his pencil again.

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," Phantom said.

Wesley leaned awkwardly against the desk behind him, trying and failing to look casual. "Why? Were you planning to?" he replied.

"No, so you don't have to be scared of me."

"I'm not scared," Wesley said, his voice a little too high. Phantom was unimpressed.

"I'm a ghost."

"You mean Danny is a ghost."

Phantom bit his lip. Right, he wasn't a ghost anymore. One would think he would get used to that idea after spending a week as a human.

He looked at the floor, where the dropped pencil sat. He bent down, picked it up, and offered it to Wesley. Wesley stiffened before warily accepting it from him. Yeah, he was definitely still scared of him.

Phantom held back a sigh and left the classroom, not looking back at Wesley. He wished he had one of his ghost friends to talk to. He turned his head to the side and inwardly groaned when he saw a familiar stocky figure approach...Dash.

Luckily for him, he was not the closest nerd in Dash's path. An unfortunate, scrawny boy with glasses backed away as Dash came near. Dash grabbed him by the arm before he could run, and Phantom winced in expectation of the beating Dash was about to deliver to the poor human.

The beating never came.

"Mikey!" Dash greeted in a-- _was that a friendly tone?_ "What are you so scared for? I just wanted to thank you for your help on our chemistry homework."

Phantom could tell from Mikey's befuddled expression that he wasn't the only one who found Dash's behavior odd. "Um...you're welcome?"

Dash grinned and patted Mikey's head. "Anyone ever tell you you're a great guy?"

Mikey was growing outright terrified of Dash's out-of-character action. "Did you hit your head? Aren't you going to stuff me inside a locker? Look, here's an empty locker right here!"

There was a violent twitch in the jock's face at the mention of locker-stuffing, but it quickly reverted to a grin as he said, "Of course not! I've realized my mistake. No more bullying from me."

Mikey still seemed wary, but he started to relax. "Really?"

Dash laughed heartily and slapped Mikey's back, causing the small nerd to stumble. "Oh, just go already. Wouldn't want to miss your next class, would you?"

Mikey sent one last confused look at Dash before fast-walking down the hallway. Everyone who was standing around and heard Dash's conversation was also staring in confusion, but Dash gave them all a bright smile before continuing on his way with an oddly cheery step. As he passed by Phantom, Phantom managed to catch a glimpse of his eyes.

His irises were gray.

Phantom thought that there was something familiar about the way he spoke, and the eyes only confirmed it.

He wondered if desiree had been reading his thoughts...because it looked like his wish just got granted.

Down a hallway, a student was taking out his anger on a vending machine. "Come on," he grumbled, kicking it. "I just want one soda!"

A shadow descended upon him, and he turned around frightfully to be faced with the infamous star quarterback. "D-Dash!" he greeted with wide eyes. Like everyone else in school, he knew Dash's short temper and his tendency to take it out with violence.

But Dash didn't seem angry in that moment. In fact, he was smiling, the expression strange on his usually sour face. "Hey, there, pal. Let me get that for you," he said and walked forward to the vending machine.

To anyone else watching, Dash used some subtle trick to get the machine to spew out a can. But to Phantom, who stood a distance away watching him inconspicuously, it was apparent that "Dash"'s trick was of a ghostly nature.

'Dash' held up the soda can and offered it to the student generously. "Here ya go! One free egg cream."

The teen raised an eyebrow at him. "Uh, you okay, Dash? You're acting...weird."

"I'm acting nice," 'Dash' said, still wearing his warm smile. "No longer do you have to fear me as a bully, because I've put that life way behind."

"Wow, really?" he replied and accepted the soft drink tentatively.

"Of course!" 'Dash' spread out his arms eagerly and said to all the students milling around, "In fact, why bother with one drink? Free egg creams for everyone!"

He stuck his hand into the vending machine again and caused several cans to flow out. The move was so obviously ghost-powered, it amazed Phantom how inattentive humans were. All of them were too busy grabbing a soda cheerfully.

"I have no idea what an egg cream is, but thanks, Dash!" one jock said.

"No problem-o," 'Dash' replied with a grin and a wink, then lifted a can to his mouth for a sip.

Phantom decided that enough was enough. He had watched this ghost parade around in Dash's body for several periods, never approaching him because he had no idea what to say--Should he tell him about his situation? Would he even believe him? It didn't matter. If he didn't make a move now, the school day would be over, and the ghost might still stay inside the bully's body.

He made his way through the crowd gathered around the vending machine and walked up to the person wearing Dash's face. Once he got close enough, he whispered, "They don't have drinks like these in the Ghost Zone, do they?"

'Dash' choked on his soda. He hacked and thumped on his chest to expel the soft drink from his lungs. "Stupid human body," Phantom heard him mutter. Then he looked down at Phantom with a scowl that almost made him look like the regular Dash again. "Who are you?"

Phantom eyed the humans around them. They weren't paying any attention to them, but still... "Maybe we should talk somewhere more private," he said in a low voice.

The ghost in Dash's body grabbed him by the arm, then pulled both of them through a wall. Phantom stumbled as he let go. "Really? Using ghost powers in plain sight?"

The ghost waved Dash's hand carelessly. "Please. Even if anyone did see us, most humans don't even believe in ghosts."

"So it _is_ you," Phantom said, " _Sidney_."

Sidney, because that indeed was him, narrowed Dash's eyes at him. "How do you know me? You can't be a ghost because I don't sense anyone overshadowing you."

"I _am_ a ghost...or, I _used_ to be." Phantom ran a hand through his hair. "Ugh, this is weird to explain, and I don't even know if you'll believe me, but...it's me. Phantom."

"Phantom? What makes you think I believe you?" He was watching him intently, no doubt wondering how a human could know not only his name but also his missing friend's name.

"Remember when you found out I was going to vandalize someone's lair and went after my ass for that because apparently that's bullying, but when you found out it was Aragon, you changed your mind and joined in with me? You specifically wrote "Aragon is a Mickey Mouse" in grafitti before we had to run away when his guards found us."

The gray eyes widened, and Sidney breathed, "Holy Ancients-- _Phantom_?"

The next thing Phantom knew, he was being crushed in Dash's burly arms. Sidney had never been a physically strong ghost, but he sure as hell was possessing a physically strong human body.

"I can't believe it! Where have you been these past few days? No one's heard from you--I thought for sure you were toast!"

Phantom struggled in his bone-crushing embrace. "Human body," he wheezed. "Have to breathe."

Sidney sheepishly let go, and Phantom was able to take in gulps of air.

"But I don't get it," Sidney said, frowning. "How come I didn't sense you in there?"

Phantom bit his lip. "That's the part that's hard to explain. Somehow, I don't have any of my ectoplasm anymore, but I'm, well...stuck? I'm stuck inside this human body because, I guess...his soul sort of...left the same time my soul went in?"

Sidney tilted Dash's head and frowned. "What are you saying?"

Phantom sighed. "I'm saying I'm alive because I accidentally stole a human's body."

"That's..." Sidney threw Dash's arms out with wide eyes and exclaimed, "That's amazing!"

Phantom frowned. "No, it's not! I can't leave!"

"But, Phantom, you're alive! Do you have any idea what I would do to get a chance at being alive again?"

"But I'm living someone else's life!" He bunched the fabric of his shirt in a sweaty fist and said, "It's wrong. And confusing."

Sidney's enthusiasm died down a bit, and he said, "Right. The human world must be strange for someone who doesn't remember his human life."

Phantom raised an eyebrow. "I'm a Zone-born ghost. I didn't have a human life."

"Right," Sidney said again, his eyes darting to the side. Phantom frowned. He was pretty sure that he formed in the Ghost Zone, but the way Sidney acted was almost as if he was hiding something.

Before he could ask anything, Sidney said, "I don't get it, though. How did this happen?"

Phantom decided to file away Sidney's odd behavior to think about at a later time. For now, he answered, "I think it had to do with the portal opening in the exact spot I was in."

"Wait, portal? What portal?"

He could tell from Sidney's (or rather Dash's) surprised expression that this was his first time hearing about the portal, and that confused Phantom. "How did _you_ get here?" Phantom asked.

"Haunted relic," Sidney responded, puffing out Dash's chest. "I left behind a mirror in my lifetime that is apparently still around in this school. I just needed someone to touch it so I can overshadow them." His eyes sparkled, and he added eagerly, "But you're saying someone created a portal? Does that mean I can visit this world in person?"

"No!" Phantom exclaimed. Sidney stared at him. He quickly gulped and said, "I mean...it's being guarded by ghost hunters."

"Ghost hunters?" Sidney laughed. "Come on, those are always fake."

"These ones aren't," Phantom murmured. He absentmindedly rubbed his chest, where the Fenton couple had tried shooting him--only for all of them to discover that their weaponry didn't work on him while he was in Danny's body.

"Then I'll just pass through at night," Sidney replied. "Even ghost hunter humans have to sleep, right?"

That made sense, but Phantom still felt uneasy. Admittedly, it was a little hard to feel calm when the organ inside his chest (his _heart_ ) was beating more aggressively than usual. "I don't know. I still think it's a bad idea."

Sidney's gray eyes narrowed at him. "Why don't you want me to come?" He jabbed an accusing finger at Phantom and said, "You decided to make this place your haunt, didn't you?"

"What?" Phantom's eyes widened. "No! You know I don't care about owning a territory. And this school's already haunted, anyway."

"Then why don't you want me coming through?"

"I don't know!" Phantom cried, his heart threatening to burst through. _Didn't he know?_ His head ached as he felt another one of Danny's memories flash before him, which _really_ didn't feel like the right time for this. But he saw what humans thought of ghosts. Danny wasn't the only human afraid of specters. If one suddenly appeared...the humans would freak out. And this was such a calm world.

Sidney's eyes scrutinized him while he clutched his head and winced. Finally, Dash's body relaxed. "Okay," Sidney said. "I won't cross through, but only because you're my friend."

Phantom gave him a grateful smile, which wasn't as pleasant as it could have been without the emotional turmoil. "Thank you."

Sidney seemed disgruntled about his decision, but he straightened Dash's letterman jacket and smirked. "For now, I might as well enjoy my time in the human world while I'm in this Clyde's body."

Phantom had been looking at Sidney, but he shifted his attention to Dash--the body he was overshadowing. His skin had grown pale since that morning. The breaths coming through his nose were slower, or maybe Sidney forgot how to breathe again.

"You can't stay inside him for long," Phantom reminded. "Prolonged overshadowing isn't healthy."

"So?"

That question caught Phantom off guard. "So...if you stay in him for too long, he might die."

Dash's face was pulled into an expression of scorn. "He's a bully. Everyone in school is scared of him. Maybe he deserves to die."

Ba-dump, ba-dump, continued Phantom's heart. He gave a nervous chuckle and ignored the sweat forming on his neck. "You don't mean that, do you?"

But as he studied Sidney/Dash, he realized Sidney did mean it. Why should a ghost care about death? Sidney was already dead, so killing someone wasn't a big deal. And it did put a permanent end to Dash's bullying in this school.

But Phantom had seen grief in humans. He knew how big a deal death really was, at least to their kind.

Phantom gulped. "Get out of his body. You can't let him die."

"Since when do you care what happens to human bullies?"

"Since--" Phantom figured there was only one way to get Sidney to stop. He hated pulling this card with him, but...he pointed at Sidney accusingly and said, "Since hurting him makes _you_ a bully!"

Sidney recoiled. For a second, Phantom thought he would leave then and there, but he recovered with a scowl and said, "This is a special circumstance. It's just like vandalizing Aragon's lair. Some bullies deserve to taste their own medicine."

Phantom threw his arms up. "Then give him a wedgie! No need for anyone to die!"

Sidney was unnervingly quiet for a moment. Then he tilted Dash's head and said, "Being alive has changed you, hasn't it?"

Phantom had no response. He didn't know what to say to that. He didn't have to, because just then someone said, "Dash! There you are!"

He turned his head and saw a group of students in matching letterman jackets approach. One of them patted Sidney/Dash and said, "What are you doing with loser Fenturd?"

"Now, now," Sidney said and wagged Dash's finger. "Fenturd is no loser."

"It's Fenton," Phantom corrected.

Sidney's gray eyes were unreadable as they gazed at Phantom. Then they turned to the group of popular kids, and he grinned widely before saying, "Never mind that! What did you want to tell me? We should go have some fun!"

Sidney did not stop overshadowing Dash. He followed the gang as they went to do whatever Dash's friends normally did for fun besides bully.

As soon as they left, Phantom released a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He slid against the wall behind him until he was crouching on the floor. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. He looked at his stolen hands and saw that they were shaking.

He felt scared...of Sidney. Since when did he feel scared of his friends?

The same time he started caring about what happened to human bullies.

Since he became a human.

Phantom guessed there had been a lot of renovating in Casper High since Sidney was alive, but one place stayed the same: Sidney's locker. He followed the path he recognized from Sidney's lair in the Ghost Zone and found the metal cabinet sitting in the same spot as it did in the school's ghostly counterpart.

Since Danny's body was infuriatingly short, Phantom had to stand on tip toes to peek into the top locker through the slits on its door. It was hard to make out anything inside when it was shrouded in darkness, but he managed to see the glint of something reflective. Sidney's mirror. His ghostly relic.

Phantom had considered seeking the toilet ghost's help in stopping Sidney; if the ghost considered the school his haunt, then surely he would consider Sidney an intruder, right? But when he went to the haunted bathroom, he found Sidney--still in Dash's body--chatting him up. Apparently, being both ghosts who died from bullying meant they had a lot of stories to share.

With that solution out of the picture, there was only one option left: getting Sidney's mirror. As his doorway to the human world, he would do anything to keep it intact. Phantom might be able to convince him to leave Dash peacefully if he had it in his hands...if only he could figure out how to do that.

Oh, how much easier this job could have been if he kept his ghost powers in this stupid body. He would just phase his hand through the door and be done. But Phantom did not have his intangibility, and he did not have the key to Dash's locker, which meant he could only gaze at the mirror sadly and plan Dash's obituary in his head. ' _Here lies Dash Baxter: died because he failed to follow the school's anti-bullying PSA_.'

"What are you doing?" a voice spoke, causing Phantom to jump. He whipped around and saw a familiar redhead. "You again," Phantom said.

Wesley looked at the locker. He was doing a good job of pretending not to be uneased by Phantom. "That's Dash's new locker, right?" the human said.

"Yeah," Phantom confirmed. "Uh, I definitely wasn't doing anything weird, though."

"Did the not-weird thing have anything to do with getting Dash un-possessed?" At seeing Phantom staring, Wesley rolled his eyes and said, "Come on, everyone could tell that Dash has been acting super weird."

"Well...yes. He's overshadowed." Phantom nodded at the locker and explained, "There's an object in there that's connecting the ghost to the human plane. If I could get it, I could stop him from overshadowing Dash, but..." He shrugged. "I don't know how to get it."

Wesley studied the locker. "Could you move out of the way?" he said. Phantom complied. He watched as Wesley pulled out something small from his pocket...a hairclip? A pin?

Phantom couldn't quite see what Wesley was doing over his back, but he was pretty sure he jabbed the pin into the lock and jiggled it around carefully. After a while, the lock fell away, and Wesley stepped back to allow the door to swing forward.

Phantom raised an eyebrow at Wesley. Wesley smiled sheepishly and said, "I get locked out of my house a lot. Single dad isn't always home, and I forget my keys..."

Phantom didn't question him. He looked inside the locker. Behind the messy stacks of books was Sidney's mirror, smooth and shiny in spite of how many decades it had sat in there.

Phantom reached forward and pulled it off the locker wall. Just like in every other mirror, he saw Danny's face stare back at him. Not even a ghostly mirror changed that. Reflection Danny's shoulders slumped.

"So, we break the mirror?" Wesley said.

"What?" Phantom looked up at him. "No! At least, not unless it's as a last resort. I just need to scare Sid--the ghost until he leaves."

"But...it would be easier if you broke it now, right?"

"Well, yes," Phantom admitted. As Sidney's link to the human world, it seemed likely that he would disappear as soon as the link was severed. But he had a feeling breaking something so important would also sever the friendship between him and Sidney--or at least, more harshly than how it would be from him forcing Sidney to quit a human. "But this ghost is my friend. I'm sure I can talk to him."

"So...you're friends with a ghost who possesses people," Wesley said. There it was, the tension in the human's body that signified his wariness of Phantom.

"That--that doesn't mean I'm a fan of possession or anything," Phantom quickly said. "I'm not possessing Danny because I want to."

"I know," Wesley said with a sigh.

Phantom observed Wesley curiously, but the boy's expression was guarded. "Are you Danny's friend?" he asked.

Wesley...blushed? and looked away. "No. We just share a few classes. He probably doesn't even know me."

"Then why are you helping me?"

He shrugged. "My classmate is possessed, of course I would help."

"But everyone hates Dash."

"Then why are _you_ helping him if the ghost is your friend?" Wesley countered.

Phantom turned his eyes away. They landed on the mirror in his hands, and he moved them farther to avoid looking at Danny's face. "None of your business," he uttered.

An awkward silence descended on them, finally broken by Wesley as he said, "If you wanna catch Dash, he's in the basketball team with me. We're practicing in the gym after school."

After school...would Dash still be alive by then? He supposed so. After all, Danny had overshadowed Phantom for almost an entire school day, and he was still (sadly) alive.

"One more question," Wesley said. "What's your name? Your real name, not Danny."

"I go by Phantom--or, uh, I went by Phantom."

Wesley snorted. "Seriously? You're a ghost and your name is Phantom?"

Phantom glared at him and crossed his arms. "I admit, I'm not the most creative with names."

"No shit," Wesley retorted. He was smiling. He...wasn't scared of Phantom?

Wesley cleared his throat and said, "Well, I go by Wes."

"Keen-o," Phantom said, then immediately wanted to ecto-blast himself because Wes was looking at him weird. Fuck Sidney and his infectious 50s slang.

"Yeah, real keen-o," Wes said, and Phantom could tell he was holding back laughter. The bell rang. "Well...I better go. I'll see you in basketball practice, I guess."

Phantom nodded. Wes closed the locker and re-locked it. He hesitated before asking, "Won't the ghost know the mirror's gone?"

Ah. He didn't think about that. "I'll figure something out," Phantom said. Wes nodded and left.

Phantom looked down at the mirror. Again, he saw Danny's face.

Would wes have been as kind to him if he was a ghost? he wondered. Or was he only nice to him because he was Danny? Wes knew he wasn't Danny, but still...

Phantom shook his head. Worry about Danny's relationships later. For now, he had to deal with Sidney's mirror. After a thought, he placed it inside Danny's backpack and carried it with him to class.

If he remembered correctly, his next class was with Tucker. He entered the classroom and found the dark-skinned boy sitting at his desk. Just like in geometry class, he and Tucker sat next to each other--a seating arrangement that was blessed for Danny, cursed for Phantom...but maybe not this time.

Tucker perked up when he saw him approach. "Phantom!" he whispered. "Look, I'm really sorry about ditching you this morning. I meant what I said about becoming friends."

Phantom tried to remain neutral as he sat down, but he couldn't help the twinge of bitterness in his chest. "I thought Sam didn't want you to hang with me."

Tucker winced. "I'm sorry about Sam, but I swear, she doesn't hate you. It's just...it hurts, seeing you in Danny's body and knowing you aren't him."

"Thanks," Phantom muttered.

"No, I mean--there's nothing bad about you, it's just--you know, it's kinda hard wrapping my head around all this, even if it's already been almost two weeks--"

"Tucker, shut up," Phantom said. Tucker shut up. Phantom turned to him and asked, "Do you have a ghost weapon with you?"

"Huh?"

"Danny's parents are ghost hunters, and you're his friends, so do you have a ghost weapon with you?"

Tucker looked guilty. "We don't have anything against ghosts. Heck, Sam normally loves ghosts--before, you know..."

"Just answer the question."

"...I have a lipstick laser. So does Sam."

Tucker was watching him like he expected Phantom to snap. Phantom didn't care. Heck, the weapons won't even work on him so long as he was in Danny's body. Instead of feeling angry, he felt relieved; he pulled out the mirror from his backpack and thrust it to Tucker.

Tucker looked down at the object. "What--"

"That mirror's haunted."

Tucker pushed the mirror away from him as if Phantom just said it was on fire. Phantom barely managed to catch it before it could shatter on the floor. He glared at Tucker and hissed, "What was that for?"

"Why are you giving me a haunted mirror?!"

Phantom shoved it toward Tucker again and said, "I need you to guard it for me until school finishes. If I keep it with me, the ghost will know."

Tucker stared at him in befuddlement. Admittedly, his request _was_ pretty sudden from Tucker's point of view. But there was no time to explain--Sidney/Dash just entered the room.

Phantom quickly hid the mirror under Tucker's textbook. A part of him hoped it wouldn't crack under the textbook's weight (school textbooks were ridiculously heavy) but he doubted a ghost-powered object would be so easy to shatter. As soon as the mirror was out of sight, he sat at his desk, looking casual.

Tucker followed his gaze to Sidney, and understanding clicked. "I _knew_ Dash was possessed," he whispered.

"Overshadowed," Phantom corrected. "But yes."

As Sidney made his way to Dash's desk, his eyes lingered on Phantom. He didn't give any attention to Tucker. That was good.

Phantom's foot tapped below his desk as the teacher droned on about some history subject. He glanced at the clock. There were only a few periods left until school ended and the basketball team's practice session began. All he had to do was wait.

Phantom decided that smell was his least favorite of the human senses. Sure, there were nice smells, like flowers, and freshly-cooked meals. But there is also the horrible reek of sweaty gym locker rooms.

Phantom had to hold his nose to stop himself from gagging. Why did humans need to have such strong olfactory senses?

"Remind me why we're here again?" Tucker said next to him. He must have been used to the smell because he was breathing fine. In one of his hands was Sidney's mirror, and in the other was a Fenton™-brand lipstick.

"Dash has after school practice," Phantom answered. His voice sounded funny with him holding his nose, but he wasn't enthusiastic to let go. He turned to Tucker and added, "You didn't have to come. I can handle the ghost myself."

"Dude, like it or not, you're still in my best friend's body. I don't want to be the one to explain to Danny that you wrecked his body by challenging a ghost on your own."

Phantom ignored the wave of sadness he felt at the mention of Danny. Tucker would only need to explain things _if_ Danny ever returned. Also if Phantom allowed his body to get wrecked. He sighed but did not argue with Tucker.

"There you are," Wes said, approaching Phantom. He was wearing Casper High's red-and-white basketball uniform. Tucker raised an eyebrow at him.

"Tucker, Wes," Phantom introduced. "He knows about me and Danny."

"Aren't you that guy from our gym class?" Tucker said.

"And math class," Wes mumbled.

One of the basketball players in the locker room heard them and came over. "Hey Fenton, Foley, what are you two doing here?" He smirked and added, "You didn't come here for a gay make-out, did you?"

Tucker gagged and said, "God, no, Danny's my best friend. I wouldn't do that to his body."

The basketball player laughed. Wes's expression was...unreadable.

Phantom decided to step forward toward the basketball player. He recognized him as one of the jocks that always hung out with Dash, which must have made him Dash's friend. "Do you--" he began, then remembered this guy was a bully and seemed like he was about to make fun of his funny voice, so he let go of his nose (ignoring the assault on his senses) and said, "Do you know where Dash is?"

"Right here," Dash's voice came from behind, and Phantom turned around to see Sidney/Dash.

Sidney's eyes rove to the mirror in Tucker's hand. His expression darkened.

There was a clap that alerted everyone to the adult human that just entered the room. She was a woman, and Phantom was pretty sure this locker room was for boys, but no one seemed to care. She must have been the coach.

"All right, pansies, enough time getting ready," the coach barked. "Time for practice."

"Yes, Coach Tetslaff," a few boys replied. Most of them followed her command and left the room, but Sidney-as-Dash stayed behind. He went up to her and said, "Actually, coach? I feel kind of sick. Do you think I could sit this one out?" To accentuate his point, he faked a cough.

Tetslaff looked like she was about to argue, but she saw him and paused. The prolonged overshadowing was starting to show its effect on Dash's body. He was pale, sweaty, and had rugged breathing. After a moment's hesitation, Tetslaff grumbled, "Fine. But just this once." She caught Wes standing by the doorway and barked, "What are you waiting for, Weston? You don't look sick to me."

Wes gave Phantom one more glance before he and Tetslaff left the room. That left only Phantom, Tucker, and Sidney-as-Dash inside.

He could tell Sidney was angry at him for taking his relic, but the ghost kept himself calm and raised Dash's hand carefully. "Give me the mirror," he said.

"First, let go of Dash," Phantom ordered. He tried his best to display confidence. Never mind that he didn't have a ghost weapon like Tucker, nor did he know any fight moves that did not include ghost powers he didn't have.

Sidney must have known how powerless he was, but he didn't make a move. He narrowed his eyes and asked, "Why are you sticking up for someone who bullied you?"

"Actually, he has a point," Tucker said. "Why _are_ we helping Dash?"

Phantom glared at Tucker. Sidney chose that moment to lunge forward, but before he could even go two steps, Tucker uncapped his lipstick and pointed it menacingly at him. "Don't try it, demon," he said.

"He's a ghost," Phantom whispered.

"Shush. I know."

Sidney froze at the sight of Tucker's ecto-weapon. It didn't look very intimidating, but it must have given off some ghostly energy to convince Sidney to stay in place. He glowered at Phantom. "What are you going to do?"

Phantom pressed his lips. "Tucker, give me the mirror," he said. Tucker complied. Phantom held the mirror above his head and warned, "I'll smash it."

"You wouldnt," Sidney growled.

"Wanna find out?" He swung the mirror toward the ground, but before he could let go, Sidney quickly cried, "Stop!"

Phantom held the mirror in place, but it was shaking--actually, his entire arms were shaking. "I don't want to do this," he said in a quavering voice. "I don't know why I'm doing this."

He could feel both other pairs of eyes in the room pierce into him. Sidney's gray eyes scrutinized him. After what felt like an eternity, the ghost calmly said, "Okay."

"Okay?" Tucker repeated, surprised.

Sidney stepped back and held up Dash's arms in surrender. "Okay, I'll leave."

"That's it? I kind of expected a ghost fight," Tucker said almost disappointedly, turning to Phantom. "I didn't even get to use my laser."

Sidney scoffed. "A fight would involve violence, which is bullying. I don't do that."

"Wow," Tucker said. "You seem like a pretty nice ghost, actually."

Phantom and Sidney held each other's gaze, and Phantom could tell they both felt a bit of betrayal at the other's action. "He is," Phantom said. "He just needs to let the human go."

Tucker's jolted and tightened his grip around his lipstick when a cloud of smoke escaped from Dash. The smoke was sucked into the mirror in Phantom's hands. As soon as it left, Dash's now-blue eyes rolled into his skull, and his body crumpled against a row of lockers.

Phantom looked down at the mirror and saw its surface glow green before it settled back into a regular mirror, reflecting Danny's face back at him.

A loud snore pulled his attention to Dash, who was lying on the floor in what looked like an uncomfortable position, mouth open and drooling. He snored again.

Tucker snickered. "At least he's alive."

Phantom turned away from Dash and moved toward the locker room's exit. Tucker followed him. "So that's it?" Tucker asked.

Phantom paid little attention to the basketball team practicing in the gym before he emerged into the hallways again. "That's it," he confirmed. "Dash is alive, and Sidney's back where he belongs."

"I still don't get why you helped Dash," Tucker said. "I would've thought ghosts don't care about life and death."

Phantom slowed in his tracks until he stopped. He hung his head. _That's the thing isn't it?_ he thought. _I'm not a ghost anymore._

"Just go home, Tucker," he murmured.

Tucker lingered by his side for a second longer, but he must have been able to sense that Phantom needed some time alone, because he evetually left. His footsteps echoed across the empty hallways as he made his way to the school's exit.

That left Phantom alone with Sidney's mirror. He let his lungs expand--a feeling he was starting to get used to and was strangely calming. Then he walked toward Danny's locker.

There was no way he was placing the mirror back in Dash's locker, of course. It wasn't that he didn't trust Sidney to keep his word, but who knew what Dash might do to the relic in a moment of anger (of which he had plenty). So instead, he opened Danny's locker and hung the mirror inside.

Rather than close the door and leave, he kept it open and gazed at the mirror's surface. With his shadow blocking the locker's interior, and humans' poor ability to see in the dark, he could almost imagine himself staring back instead of Danny.

"I'm sorry, Sidney," he said to the mirror. "I don't know what came over me. I just couldn't let you hurt someone."

The mirror stayed quiet. Phantom sighed and leaned against the locker door he was holding. "Being a human is so confusing. I want to be back at the Ghost Zone, with you and the others. I never asked to be here."

There was another moment of silence, and then the mirror glowed. He watched as a fog appeared on its surface and swirled before solidifying into Sidney's face--small and geeky, way different from the one he overshadowed.

"You really can't leave?" Sidney asked.

Phantom didn't admit how much joy he felt at seeing a familiar face. "If I can leave, I would have done so ten days ago."

Sidney looked remorseful. "Right. I didn't think about how tough it would be for someone to return to the human world without any memories of it."

There he went again. His wording implied that Phantom had been alive before. Phantom frowned. "Why do you keep talking like I'm a death-formed ghost?"

Sidney hesitated. He seemed to pick his next words carefully. "You say you're a Zone-born ghost, but do you even have parents?"

"They moved on."

"Who has a core child unless they plan on sticking around?"

Phantom was starting to get irritated. "I don't know, maybe they finished their business sooner than expected."

"But no one knows your parents, if they really are ghosts. And you know how fast news spread in the Ghost Zone. Any ghost deciding to have a core child would definitely have counted as news."

"So, what? You think I died and forgot about it?"

"It's not unheard of. Ghosts who had especially violent deaths often forget their lives at first." Sidney shrugged and admitted, "Maybe I'm wrong and you really are Zone-born. But I find it a little convenient that you managed to learn human processes quickly enough to keep yourself alive for ten days."

Phantom didn't know how to respond to that. True, sometimes he did things in the human world that felt familiar in a way, but he always assumed it was due to him gaining Danny's memories. "If all that you said is true, why wait to tell me now?"

"You know why," Sidney said, his expression troubled. "Ghosts with violent deaths..."

"...are always violent themselves," Phantom completed. Sidney bit his lip and nodded. Phantom glared at the chemistry book in the locker and said, "But you don't think I could turn out like that, do you?"

"Of course not. That's why I'm telling you now. Because--"

"Because I'm a human now," Phantom murmured.

"...I was going to say it's because I got to know you better."

Phantom's eyes didn't meet the mirror. After a moment, Sidney sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to burden you with more identity crises than you already have. If you ever want to talk, at least I'm here to listen."

Phantom glanced up. "You mean we're still friends?"

Sidney looked almost offended as he said, "Of course we're still friends! What do you take me for?"

Phantom smiled, but his expression turned into uncertainty as he pointed out, "But I touched your relic and drove you out of a human."

Sidney grumbled, "To be frank, I still don't forgive you for that. But at least I understand why you did it."

"Why's that?"

"Because you're a human now."

Before Phantom could know how to react to that, he heard footsteps echo his way. He turned away from the locker to see Wes jogging toward him. When he looked back at the mirror, Sidney's face was gone, dissolved back into mist before it disappeared.

"You did it!" Wes was saying as he approached grinning. "Dash woke up after practice. He doesn't remember anything from the time he was possessed. Everyone is assuming he had a really rough fever that made him delusional." He caught Phantom's somber expression, and his smile fell. "Is everything okay?"

Phantom closed the locker door quietly. "I'm fine," he said, though he didn't feel it. "The ghost is back in the Ghost Zone."

"The Ghost Zone?" Wes echoed. Phantom turned his head to look at him, and any amusement Wes felt at the silly name vanished. He shifted his foot. "Sorry. I guess it must have been tough, facing off your friend."

Phantom's hand was still on the locker door. The metal was cool against his fleshy skin. "It's okay. We talked it out," he said.

Wes fidgeted with his hands. "Well," he began shyly, "if you want any human friends, I'm always free."

The tips of Wes's ears had gone pink. Phantom narrowed his eyes. He was beginning to recognize this human's strange behavior around Phantom. It was the same way Ember sometimes got around Skulker, not that he ever understood her infatuation.

He tilted his head and asked, "You have a crush on Danny, don't you?"

Wes choked. His face turned as red as the accents of his basketball uniform as he stammered, "W-what? A crush? No! That--that's ridiculous!"

Phantom didn't bother focusing on how flustered Wes was. Instead, he said sadly, "You know I'm not him, right?"

Wes calmed down, and he looked down at his feet sorrowfully. "I know."

Phantom turned his face away. Not for the first time, he wished he knew where Danny was. The silence between him and Wes grew heavy.

Phantom cleared his throat. "Well, if you do find Danny attractive, at least I know the body I'm in is hot."

Wes snorted, then dissolved into laughter. Phantom smiled. The mood lifted just a little bit.

Once his laughter died down, Wes rubbed his neck and said, "Want to walk home together? Or...I guess to Danny's home, in your case."

Phantom's smile fell. "You don't have to be close to me just because you like Danny."

"Dude, I've had more conversations with you in one day than I had with Danny in my life," Wes said, then immediately blushed and added, "Not that that means I'm crushing on you or anything...but we're friends, aren't we?"

Phantom felt a flutter of warmth at that, but it was small compared to his overall negative feelings left over from his confrontation with Sidney. "We are," he told Wes, "and thank you...but if you don't mind, I'd like to be alone for now."

Wes lingered in the edge of his vision before he finally said, "All right. I'll see you tomorrow, then." He turned and reluctantly walked away.

Phantom was left alone in an empty school. He leaned against a row of lockers and closed his eyes. Today should have been a good day. He met friends, both new and old. So why did he feel less than happy?

"Danny! Where have you been?" Jazz said as soon as he stepped foot indoors. She was crossing her arms and glaring at him.

Phantom ignored her in favor of looking around the otherwise unoccupied living room. "Where are Mom and Dad?" he asked.

"Out for groceries," Jazz answered impatiently. "What about you? If you wanted to stay after school, you could have called me!"

"Oh," Phantom said, feeling guilty for having forgotten about Danny's sister. She was the nicest Fenton to him, even if she didn't believe the truth about his identity. He reached a hand into his pocket and found it empty. "Actually, I think I forgot my phone at home."

Jazz pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered something incomprehensible. "Just--don't make me worry next time, okay? I had to learn from Sam that you were busy with something."

"Sam?" Phantom said, surprised. The two of them still hadn't spoken since the day Danny left. Maybe Tucker told her to tell Jazz.

Jazz shrugged and moved toward her room upstairs. "There's leftovers in the kitchen. You can heat them yourselves."

"Sure," Phantom said, fairly certain he had learned how to use a microwave correctly. Once Jazz left, he made his way to the kitchen. But he didn't have an appetite at the moment.

Sure, he was hungry. But his mind dwelled too much on Sidney and what he had told him, so he doubted he had the energy in him to make himself a meal. Instead, he went to the door in the back that led downstairs--to the Fentons' underground laboratory.

Phantom opened the door and stood at the edge of the stairs. It seemed to lead into nothing but darkness, but he could smell the whiff of sterilized ectoplasm and metal.

He hadn't been down in the lab since he first woke up there in Danny's body. Most of the time, the Fenton couple was there, and they intimidated him too much. But now they were outside.

Phantom gulped and descended the stairs.

The portal was right where he remembered it. He didn't have a chance to get a good look at it last time, having been too busy freaking out over his situation, but he vaguely recalled a glowing green hole in the wall. The hole was now covered by yellow-and-black blast doors, but he was certain it was the same portal.

There were several tables across the lab with various half-assembled and fully-assembled weapons on them. Phantom tried not to freeze up when he passed by them. At least he didn't find any dissected ghost remains.

He walked up to the portal and stopped. On the other side of those doors was his home...his old friends, Sidney included...and maybe even the real Danny. He could step through and be back home, but he knew he wouldn't be able to survive. Ghosts could be a vicious bunch if they needed to be, and he didn't have any ghost powers to defend himself.

He could only hope Danny was faring okay.

Phantom turned to head upstairs, but he paused in his tracks and winced as yet another memory assaulted him. But...something felt different about this one.

He felt someone's hand holding his. It was large, covering his completely--or maybe _his_ hands were small. There was the sharp smell of antiseptic and the steady beating of a heart monitor.

The person lying in the bed in front of him was horrible to look at. His skin was covered with green blisters that almost seemed to glow. He gripped the hand holding his own and hid behind the standing person's body, trying to form a barrier between himself and the hospital bed.

The human holding his hand--a woman, he remembered--said something muddled through his memory and urged him forward to the person in the bed. He didn't want to get close. The bed towered above his small form, but the woman carried him and set him down on the bed next to the prone, blistered body.

The prostrate person--he was hesitant to call him a human--was breathing ruggedly. The green bumps on his skin seemed to glow with every breath he took. His eyes were closed, but as he watched with terror, they opened to reveal completely red, glowing eyes.

The last thing he remembered was crying and attempting to flee--then the memory ended, and Phantom was thrust back into the Fentons' lab.

Phantom gasped and fell onto the ground. Sweat poured out his body, and he shivered. Those red eyes were still lingering in his vision when he heard hurried footsteps descend the stairs.

"Danny? What are you doing down there?" Jazz's voice came.

Her red hair and concerned teal eyes appeared in his sight as she tried to help him up. Phantom weakly slapped her hands away and said, "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," Jazz argued.

True, he wasn't fine. But he didn't want to talk about it, least of all with Jazz, and he knew she would prod. He grumbled again, "I'm fine. I don't need your help."

He tried to stand up and immediately fell back down. Jazz raised her eyebrows at him. He sighed and accepted her help.

He leaned against her, shaking all the way, as she carried them up the stairs and back into the kitchen. She kept her mouth shut. Phantom was grateful for that.

She set him down on the nearest chair. He leaned his fists against his lap and breathed.

"Do you--"

"I don't want to talk," Phantom answered before she could finish.

Jazz reluctantly left him alone. He had to admit, Danny's sister wasn't a bad human.

Phantom finally got his breathing down, though his heart still thumped against his chest. What _was_ that? None of Danny's memories he experienced had ever left him so shaken.

He thought back to what Sidney told him. He had been alive before, but he had forgotten all about his life. Now...

Phantom closed his eyes and gulped.

He had experienced a memory, but it wasn't Danny's.


	3. roleplaying my past life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> danny remembers a fond memory uwu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> compared to the two previous 8k-word chapters, this one is really short...also i kind of made myself sad while writing this so oops

Danny wished he could starve.

That was a sentence most people didn't say. But even as he ate the cereal bar he had stolen, he knew he didn't need to eat it. It didn't give him any energy or quench any hole in his stomach. It just went...who knows where, because it wasn't the other end. He hadn't needed to use the toilet in days. Worst of all, the food didn't even taste the same--everything he ate tasted like ectoplasm.

Not that that stopped him from eating it.

"Dude, what's wrong with your skin?" a man said. Danny looked up and found the person...the human...standing in the bus stop next to him, squinting at his face.

Right--he had lowered his scarf to free his mouth to eat. Danny covered his face again and mumbled, "Skin condition."

The man didn't question him. Most likely, a blue-skinned, slightly glowing teenager wasn't the strangest thing he'd seen.

Okay, so Danny was pretending to still be a human. The hoodie he wore did a good job of covering his white hair and most of his jumpsuit. The sunglasses he wore hid his glowing eyes. The scarf covered the rest of his unusually-colored face.

So what?

 _Dying_ was what Jazz would have called a traumatic experience. Danny was desperate to cling onto any semblance of his old life as a human, or he would have lost it. So, he walked and rode buses instead of flying. He breathed even though he couldn't suffocate. He ate and drank even though he didn't starve or become thirsty. At night, he lay down and closed his eyes in an attempt to sleep but always failed because he didn't need to.

He didn't need to do any of those things that kept him alive because he was dead.

He missed being a human. He missed being able to starve.

There was the rumbling of an engine as a bus rolled into view. The doors slid open. The man climbed aboard, and Danny followed.

He picked a seat toward the back of the bus and sat down. Logically, he knew he would have reached his destination days ago if he had simply chosen to fly, but he couldn't help it. As exhilarating as flying was, it was foreign...inhuman. So, he had spent his days walking and stopping to rest even though he didn't need to because he never felt exhausted.

He leaned his head against the window, making sure not to accidentally phase it through, as the bus began to drive. The road outside was dark, the stars hidden behind clouds. The landscape passed by in a blur.

His destination was, of course, in Wisconsin.

His parents were not the only ghost experts in the human world. He remembered visiting their old college friend when he and Jazz were little. Uncle Vlad was as knowledgable as Mom and Dad were in ghost matters, but he was less trigger-happy.

There was one time years ago when their family came to Wisconsin for a ghost expo, and Uncle Vlad offered to let them stay over. Danny must have been four or five years old. He considered himself a big boy, and for that, he insisted on sleeping in his own guest bedroom in spite of his parents' reluctance. He regretted that decision when he woke up in the middle of a night from a frightful nightmare.

Shivering from the image of a ghost trying to eat him, he left his room and attempted to search for his parents. Unfortunately, the mansion was so big that he quickly became lost. After turning another corner and being greeted by a wall of Packers merch but no bedroom door, his bottom lip trembled. Somehow, a deep part of his five-year-old soul was certain that a ghost was out to get him.

"What are you doing here, little badger?" Vlad's voice spoke, and he looked up to find the man standing before him.

Danny didn't want Vlad to think he was a scaredy cat like his classmates in kindergarten did, so he didn't tell him he was scared. Instead, he stood as straight as his little body could allow and said truthfully, "I want Mommy and Daddy."

"Mommy and Daddy? Sure, I was just on my way back from the potty. I can bring you there." Vlad pouted and added, "But tell me, why do you want them? I thought you were a big boy now. That's what you said."

"I'm not scared! I..." he fidgeted and said, "Mommy and Daddy always protect me from ghosts."

"You're worried a ghost might hurt you?" Vlad said, eyebrows raised. Danny nodded.

"Ghosts are bad."

Vlad smiled. He crouched until he was at eye level with the young boy. "Did Mommy and Daddy tell you that?"

"Yes. They know a lot about ghosts! And they hunt them down so they don't hurt us!"

"I'm sure they do," Vlad said. "But you know, I also know a lot about ghosts."

"Are you a ghost hunter, too?" Danny asked, tilting his head. He never saw Vlad carry any weapons like his parents did. And he didn't wear a jumpsuit either, which his parents insisted was an important part of their job.

"No, I'm not. And do you want to know why?" He leaned forward and whispered, "I know of a way to stop ghosts without weapons."

Danny widened his eyes. "How?" he asked curiously.

"It's easy..." He suddenly thrust his hands out in a scary gesture and said with an exaggerated growl, "You scare them before they scare you!"

Danny jumped at Vlad's scare--then laughed. "That can't be right!"

"Oh, it is," Vlad said with a very serious expression. "Do you want to know how I'm sure? Because no ghost ever got the best of me."

"Really?" Danny said, still not quite believing him.

"Of course. Ghosts are only scary if you let them scare you. But if _you_ scare them instead--well, they'll leave you alone!"

He grinned, and Danny couldn't help but grin back. Vlad then stood up and asked, "Do you still want me to take you to your parents?"

Danny thought about it for a second, then puffed out his chest and said, "No. I'm not scared!"

"That's the spirit," Vlad said and ruffled his hair.

That single conversation was not enough to end his fear of ghosts, of course. But for that night, at least, he didn't have any nightmares when he went back to bed.

Later that week, when they had to return to Amity Park, he asked his parents why they didn't visit Uncle Vlad more often. His mother smiled and explained that Wisconsin was very far away.

"Then why don't we move?" he asked.

He vividly remembered a brief moment where Mom looked uncomfortable, though he didn't understand why. However, Dad quickly answered for her by saying, "I, for one, like our house in Amity Park. Don't you?"

Danny grumbled and let it slide. But as they went to pack their things, and Jazz caught him without their parents, she said in her stuck-up big sister tone, "It's obvious why Mom and Dad don't want us to spend time with Uncle Vlad. He's crazy."

Danny frowned. "No he's not."

Jazz rolled her eyes. "He is. You're just too dumb to notice."

Danny didn't understand why she said those things. He thought she was being mean. After all, Vlad was a perfectly rational man!

It was not until years later that he thought back on their encounters and realized Jazz told the truth. Danny always focused on the nice memories he had with Vlad, but there were times when Vlad went from calm and collected to agitated and paranoid in the blink of an eye. Sometimes Vlad changed personalities so violently that it was almost as if two souls lived inside him. Those memories always scared Danny, so he kept them in the back of his memory.

Still, despite how crazy Vlad might have been, Danny still thought of him fondly. Recalling their encounters brought a smile to his face--such as now.

He was sure there must be a way to reverse the switch between him and Phantom. His parents, the leading ghost experts he knew, were too biased against ghosts to listen to him. But maybe Vlad could help him. He had all of their expertise and none of their irrational hatred toward ghosts.

So, here he was, on his way through Wisconsin.

There was a kid in the seat in front of him, watching him over the seatback curiously, probably wondering why he was dressed in a way that covered his glowing face. Danny ignored him and continued gazing out the dark window.

All of a sudden, a chill gripped at him and caused him to shiver. He knew temperature did not affect him as a--you know. He widened his eyes just in time to see his breath turn to mist.

He turned his head away from the window and stared to the front of the bus. the inside of the vehicle was nearly empty, carrying only a few passenger beside himself. The bus driver was a regular, unimpressive dude. Outside the bus, through the front windshield...

Danny saw the glowing figure approach before the bus's headlights did.

It moved too quickly to observe clearly, but it looked like a person riding a motorcycle--and they were headed right at the bus. The bus driver jolted and turned the wheel hurriedly to avoid the crazy biker. The bus lurched violently to the side. The kid in front of Danny screamed and gripped his seat.

Whether they avoided the biker or not was unclear (though Danny doubted it mattered), but now they faced a bigger danger. The bus drove off the road and into the uneven terrain. Soon, everyone was screaming as the vehicle toppled down the hills and into trees, threatening to land in a wrecked heap.

The only one who wasn't affected by the movements of the bus was Danny. he was untouched by gravity and inertia. As he watched the scene play out before him, he knew he had to do something--anything--to help these people.

He stood. He placed a hand against the shuddering window and focused, sending his energy across the bus's frame and through the passengers inside. A few of them gasped at the sudden sensation that overtook them. The bus stopped--right in the middle of a tree.

Danny ignored his self-placed no-flying rule and, still keeping his hand to the wall, moved up until he pressed against the roof. He grunted and pushed upward. The bus was actually pretty easy to lift since Danny kept it intangible from gravity, but he did feel his energy drain as he maintained the ghostly power (hey, turns out he _can_ grow tired).

He carried the bus back to the road and set it down. As soon as he removed his hands, it returned to normal, and he landed on his seat, feeling tired for the first time since he left home.

Everybody stared. Many of them backed away from him. The kid in front of him gawked until his mother pulled him away from Danny and hugged him to her. Even the bus driver gaped.

"What _are_ you?" the kid's mother demanded.

Danny couldn't blame them. Even if he didn't just show an obvious display of ghost powers, his hood and sunglasses had fallen off in the action. Everyone saw how glowy, how unusual, how _ghostly_ he was.

They stared at him with _fear_.

"I'm..." He wanted to say he was a normal human, but that wasn't true, was it? He was a ghost--a _monster_. Everyone looked at him like one, and everyone was right.

He trembled. His bottom lip quivered. Suddenly, he felt like he was a lost five-year-old again, looking for his parents.

He wished he could disappear.

Several gasps sounded, and he looked down and realized he literally did disappear. Great. He didn't even think about turning invisible; his ghost powers simply worked according to his emotions.

Well, since he was already gone from view....he ran across the bus to the doors and phased through them. He didn't look back until he made it to the woods on the side of the road. Finally, he dropped his invisibility and collapsed on his knees.

There were many things he hated about being a ghost, but in that moment, he realized the cruelest thing was that he couldn't even cry. He had no tear ducts to make his eyes water. The most he could do was whimper and whine while the emotions boiled inside him.

He wasn't sure how much time he passed that way, but eventually, he stopped whining long enough to hear two voices speaking nearby. His breath misted over. He gulped, then gingerly picked himself up and crept around a tree to see two people--two _glowing_ people--arguing next to a motorcycle.

"Ancients, I said I was sorry, okay?" one of them, a guy ghost with gray skin and blonde hair, said. "I thought we were invisible!"

"You could have killed them," said the other, a girl ghost with wild green hair and blue skin. Her red leather jacket stood out beside the guy's dark gray one.

"Why do you care if they live or die?"

"Excuse me for not wanting a bus load of vengeful spirits after us!"

The guy held up his hands placatingly and said, "Fine, fine! I'll be more careful next time! In my defense, we haven't been to the human world in ages."

The girl rolled her eyes. They landed on Danny, and she paused. "Hey, who're you?" she asked.

The guy followed her vision and saw Danny. Danny squirmed under his glowing eyes. He almost considered turning invisible again, but he didn't know if that would hide him from them.

The guy grinned and said, "Another ghost, eh? Did you come through the portal, too?"

"How did you get past the ghost hunters?" the girl asked. "Those were awful to sneak past."

The guy smirked. He wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders and said, "Good thing you have a boyfriend who's excellent at sneaking, right?"

"Sure, one who forgot to turn invisible while driving head on toward a bus full of humans," the girl grumbled and rolled her eyes, though she didn't make a move to remove his arm from her.

Danny stayed silent, watching them with wary eyes. The last time he'd encountered a ghost, it didn't go so well. But these two didn't seem to have any malicious intent toward him.

When Danny gave no response, the guy smirked and said, "What? Worried we might attack?" He turned up his palms in a peaceful gesture and said, "Don't worry, no territorial disputes in the human realm. We're all tourists here."

"I'm not a tourist," Danny said before he could stop himself.

"No? What are you here for, then? Hoping to fulfill some unfinished business?"

Danny clenched his jaw. He wasn't sure what made him decided to talk to these ghosts. Maybe he was tired of keeping everything to himself. Maybe he didn't want them to act like he was one of them. But he held his head up and said, "I won't stay a ghost for long."

"So you _are_ moving on?"

"No," Danny said. "I'm going to be human."

For a moment, the ghost couple was speechless. Then the girl gave him a pitiful look while the guy barked with laughter. "Yeah, right. Let me guess--you read about some elixir of life in Ghostwriter's library, and now you're going to find it and revive yourself? If that stuff were real, someone would have found it ages ago. Just give up and accept that you're dead like the rest of us."

Danny clenched his fists. "What if my body is still alive?"

The guy raised his eyebrows. "Well, now you're just delusional."

"He must be a new ghost," the girl said, still eyeing him sadly. "The poor guy's in denial."

"I'm not in denial," Danny argued. "And I'm not delusional! My body really is still alive."

"Oh yeah, wise guy?" the guy taunted. "Then how the hell are you a ghost?"

"It's...it's complicated," Danny told him. "Someone else is in my body. It was an accident with the portal. We switched places."

"Yep, definitely delusional," the guy said, shaking his head slowly. He steered the girl to their motorcycle and said, "Come on, we don't need to waste time with someone in denial like him."

"I'm not in denial!" Danny said. But the ghost couple had already ridden on the bike. He caught the girl giving him one last sorry look before the vehicle revved into action, driving down the road without any smoke.

Danny was alone. He swallowed down a lump in his throat and ignored the tremble in his chin. "I'm not in denial," he whispered to himself.

Because a person in denial would not pretend to be alive when he's not.

Danny bit down his emotions and turned to the road. The bus had recovered from its shock and driven off without him (or maybe they wanted to get away from him). The road was empty.

He took in a deep breath and let it go. He wished that did anything, though. Not needing oxygen meant breathing exercises did little to assuage his nerves.

Still, he sighed and faced the long road. And he walked.


End file.
